Yes, he was a pacifist and he would continue to be a pacifist until the day he died.
Being a pacifist did not necessitate having a placid, saintly or unemotional temperament. On the contrary, he believed that in terms of the causes of war, placid unemotional people could be most dangerous.
You had to be emotionally involved. You had to have strong feelings. You had to care and you had to care enough and caring enough meant caring all the time. It was no use caring too late.
That was the difference in the pacifist. He had to be emotionally violent in peace-time. Peace was the pacifist’s battleground. A pacifist was a peace-tired fighter. The victory he fought for was the prevention of war. His was the unglamorous, the unpopular, the never-ending chore of keeping well informed about what was going on in the world and passing on that information to people who did not want to know; reading newspapers and other organs of information with a questioning suspicious mind. To be particularly sceptical of the leaders of men and every sentence they uttered no matter how cleverly phrased and charmingly delivered. To be courageous enough to swim against the tide, to contradict in public places among strangers, or in private gatherings with friends.
Being a pacifist involved fighting after the First World War was over. It meant arguing about treaties. It meant shouting from the house-tops that a Second World War would grow from the victories of the first and the way in which these victories were used. It meant insisting that the end of the First World War was a prevention-point when precautions should have been taken against German grievances, not against German aggression.
It meant protesting about Britain’s stand on behalf of dictators in the Spanish Civil War. It meant insisting that here was another prevention-point. Here was where Hitler and Franco and Mussolini tested themselves, put the first boot forward, stretched the first muscles and found nothing but encouragement.
Why had the powers of Freedom and Democracy not lined themselves up firmly and politically against the dictators?
Theirs not to reason why? No, theirs to reason why, all the time!
Pain intensified, swelled to enormous proportions, became like an iron giant stamping mercilessly all over him.
He vomited teeth and blood over the edge of the bed to the floor.
He would teach his unborn children to question. He would teach them that in each individual lay the seeds of both love and hatred, peace and war and in every individual conscience lay the responsibility for which of the seeds should flourish.
He tried to move but the iron giant kicked him all over and began to grind him underfoot. He tried to suck in air but a gush of blood choked him.
He thought of Ruth. His mind struggled towards her.
Ruth … Don’t worry … One day … One day … !
Chapter 26
‘Have I done anything to offend you?’
It was the second time Ruth had asked that and Catriona hated her for putting her in the position of having to deny it. She had no proof that Ruth had any particular designs on Melvin any more than on Baldy or any other man. Ruth offended her just by being Ruth, but she could not tell the girl that. It was not fair. She hated Ruth for making her feel guilty and unfair.
Ruth had no right to like men so much. It was just not decent. Ruth enjoyed men. She viewed them as if they were a box of Turkish Delight that she was aching to get her teeth into.
Did her relationships go further than a giggling, wriggling, teasing manner? Catriona had no idea but she felt she had enough to worry about without somebody like Ruth adding to her difficulties and anxieties. She wished the girl would go. She wished she could tell her to go, but that would mean being left without a shop assistant and she could not cope with the shop herself, with Fergus and the two babies to look after.
She flushed, avoiding Ruth’s eyes.
‘No, not really,’ she protested.
But, she added bitterly to herself, you might at least have had the decency to let me say goodbye to my husband by myself.
Melvin’s leave had come to an end and he had caught an evening train for the South of England. He would not allow her to see him off at the station.
‘You’d be sure to lose yourself or do something stupid trying to get back to Clydend in the black-out,’ he insisted. ‘I know you. You’d better stay here.’
So they said goodbye at the front door and Ruth stood there saying goodbye too. Right up to the last minute, Ruth and Melvin laughed and joked together. Then Melvin said, ‘Cheerio, darlin’!’
His words were accompanied by a guffaw of laughter and the delivery of a resounding smack on Ruth’s bottom.
Catriona’s anxious eyes detected the brief second the hand lingered on the flesh, and the eager movement of the flesh quickly pressing itself into the hand.
‘Melvin.’ She pulled his arm away from Ruth. ‘Promise you’ll write and let me know how you are.’
‘Sure, sure.’ His lips under his hairy bristle of moustache met hers in a noisy enthusiastic kiss. Then he said in a sudden change of tone. ‘You behave yourself, do you hear? And remember, keep my house clean!’
They both stood watching his big khaki shoulders swoop down the stairs. They listened to his army boots clanging and echoing into silence. Then they went back into the house and shut the door.
Ruth said she would make a cup of tea.
‘That would be nice,’ Catriona replied stiffly.
While Ruth was putting the kettle on, she escaped into the bedroom. The children were all sleeping but Fergus was kicking restlessly and making moaning sounds. She straightened his blankets and hushed him and smoothed back his tangled hair.
Andrew was back in her bed tonight and she looked forward to cuddling into his warm pliant body and going to sleep with his small hand clinging to her nighty. The cot containing baby Robert had been put over in the corner at the far end of the room, away from the bed, while Melvin had been at home.
Melvin’s moods had seemed so mercurial and unreliable that sometimes she feared for the baby’s safety.
She had tried to have as little as possible to do with Robert or Andrew while Melvin was around so as not to draw attention to either of them, although to ignore them for any length of time was an agony.
If Andrew was up and about the house of course, he refused to be ignored. He kept slipping his hand into hers and leaning his head against her skirts while he sucked energetically at the thumb of his other hand. Or, still thumb-sucking, he would clamber up on to her knee to settle his cheek against her breast.
Robert could only lie alone in his pram in the close or in his cot in the room but every time Melvin’s back was turned she hurried anxiously to the pram or cot to whisper loving reassurances to him. He always rewarded her with the most beautiful smile in the world.
No one would believe that a baby as young as Robert could smile. They laughed and pooh-poohed and insisted it must only be wind. But she just needed to look a the adoration and trust that made calm pools of Robert’s eyes, and she knew, and felt a thrill, and was grateful.
Now Melvin was away the cot could come back beside the bed, and she tugged and pushed at it until she had it tight against the side. It was her idea of perfect bliss to lie in bed with Andrew cuddled into one side of her and the cot close to the other so that she could slip her hand through the bars and gently trace Robert’s features with her fingers; the downy head, the nose that was the tiny centre of the rounded rose-petal cheeks.
Sometimes, unexpectedly, his eyes would open and such love and trust would shine out through the darkness at her, she had to hug up her knees and press her arms against her breasts to contain the ecstasy. And she would lie staring into his eyes, drinking in the love and loving back with desperate gratitude.
The bumping and scraping of the cot wakened him now but he did not cry.
‘It’s all right, love,’ she whispered, smiling down at him. ‘Everything’s all right. Mummy’s here.’ Then her whisper gently rocked into song.
‘I
left my baby lying there,
Oh, lying there, oh, lying there,
I left my baby lying there.
When I returned my baby was gone …’
The door-bell rang. She tiptoed from the room and went to answer it.
Madge stood on the doormat looking larger than ever with one of her brood clinging to her hand and hiding her face in her skirt.
‘You’ll never guess,’ said Madge. ‘That big midden of mine is back from France!’
Before she could control it, Catriona’s face lit up.
‘Alec is back?’
‘What are you looking so pleased about?’
‘For you! For you!’ Catriona hastened to assure her. ‘I’m pleased that you got your man back as well. I had Melvin. He’s not long away. Aren’t you coming in, Madge? Ruth’s making a cup of tea.’
‘Well, just for a couple of minutes.’
Madge followed Catriona into the kitchen with her little girl still attached to her skirts and bumping along beside her and behind her like an awkward tail.
‘Hello, Ruth,’ Madge greeted. ‘How are you doing, hen?’
‘Oh, not bad, Madge, except that I’m missing my man, aren’t you?’
‘Am I hell! The dirty big midden’s upstairs just now with the rest of the weans, seein’ his Ma.’
‘Alec is back?’ Ruth’s face lit up, but Madge did not notice. She was struggling to peel her child off her leg.
‘Come on, hen, don’t be shy. Say hello to your Aunty Catriona and your Aunty Ruth. He’d lumber me with another wean if I’d let him. I told him to watch it but he just laughed.’
‘Aren’t men awful?’ Catriona sympathised. ‘As if you hadn’t enough with six.’
‘Seven’s a lucky number, he says! Not for you, I says, and bounced his head off the wall and knocked him unconscious!’
Ruth started to giggle and Catriona squeezed her hands over her mouth in an effort to suppress her mirth.
Suddenly Madge exploded in big-mouthed big-toothed hilarity.
‘Served him right, the dirty midden, eh?’ She accepted the cup of tea that Ruth offered. ‘Ta, hen. No word from your man yet?’
‘Mr Haddington’s written to our Member of Parliament about him.’
Madge sucked in a noisy mouthful of tea.
‘Fancy!’
The outside door burst into life with an energetic rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat!
‘That’ll be that stupid bugger,’ Madge said after another drink of tea. ‘Ruth, tell him I’m just coming, hen. Don’t let him in.’
Catriona had half-risen from her chair. She sank down again, eyes following Ruth’s back as it disappeared with eager haste from the room.
‘Help yourself to something to eat, Madge,’ she said absently.
‘My God, you’ve got biscuits!’
Even the child cautiously emerged to gaze in awe at the plate.
‘Put them in your bag and take them home.’ Catriona strained her ears to listen to the laughter and the tantalising rise and fall of conversation in the hall. ‘I’ve got a few more in the tin.’
‘Oh, ta.’ Madge’s big, square hand grabbed the biscuits and stuffed them into her bag. Then she took one out again and pushed it towards the child. ‘Here, hen, get your molars stuck into that.’ Then she rose. ‘Well, I’d better be getting back to Springburn. It’s time the weans were in bed. Poor Ma! She’s always going on about that. Right enough, it’s a shame. The poor wee buggers get dog-tired.’
‘It makes them girny, doesn’t it?’
‘Mine don’t just girn.’ Madge laughed. ‘They howl blue murder. That’s them started. Would you listen to the racket. My God! All I need now is for this one to join in.’
Catriona followed Madge’s buxom figure into the hall.
‘She’s a good wee girl aren’t you, pet?’
She patted the child’s head. The little girl was still hiding into Madge’s skirts but her cheeks now bulged with biscuit.
‘Och, aye!’ Madge agreed. ‘Right enough!’
Bedlam reigned on the doorstep. Alec had a sobbing child in each arm and others leaning or hanging on to him in various degrees of heartbroken fatigue.
‘Hello there, hen!’ he called cheerily over the noise to Catriona. ‘How are you doing?’
Madge pushed out in front of him.
‘Never you mind how she’s doing. It’s none of your business how she’s doing. Come on!’
‘I’m coming, gorgeous. I’m all yours!’ said Alec, giving Catriona a quick wink before turning away.
She hoped Ruth would not notice her flushed cheeks or hear the pounding of her heart when she returned to the kitchen.
Dreamily stirring her tea, Ruth murmured half to herself:
‘He’s awful, isn’t he? But you can’t help liking him, can you?’
‘He’s all right, I suppose,’ Catriona replied casually.
‘He’s got something, hasn’t he?’ Ruth’s husky voice melted all her words together. ‘It’s not just that he’s handsome, is it? There’s something likeable about him even though he’s awful at the same time, don’t you think?’
‘Madge can be very violent. She wasn’t joking.’
‘I know. Poor Alec.’
‘Not just with Alec. She can be violent with women as well.’
‘Oh?’ Ruth fluttered starry lashes and sipped daintily at her tea.
Catriona pressed the point home.
‘Yes, I believe Madge is terribly jealous.’
‘Well, you ought to know!’
Like guns, Catriona’s eyes shot up.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You and Madge are such good friends.’ Ruth smiled. ‘Aren’t you?’
There was no doubt about it, Catriona decided; Ruth would have to go.
Chapter 27
Madge knew he had gone up to the insurance office to see old Torrance earlier in the day so later all he needed to say was:
‘Old Torrance was too busy to talk. The place was going like a fair. He’s asked me up to his house in Balornock for a drink tonight, though. He’s not a bad old stick. You know what he’s like, of course. A drink to him means quite a few. Better not wait up for me, gorgeous.’
So here he was, with an alibi for tonight, with everything arranged, and actually on his way to Ruth. He had never felt so excited in years. He could hardly credit his good fortune.
He had tried to talk to her at the door of Catriona’s place that other night but didn’t get a chance for the weans and eventually he had burst out more as a joke than anything else.
‘My God, what a life! It’s not worth living any more. I wish I could get you on my own the way I used to.’
To his astonishment Ruth replied with a sigh, ‘You’re right, Alec, but my house is sublet just now, didn’t you know? There was no use it lying empty, was there? This way I can make a few shillings extra, can’t I? Then, of course, it’s being kept filled, and it’s being taken care of, isn’t it? But we could meet somewhere else, couldn’t we?’
‘How about the Ritzy?’ He snatched at the first thing that came into his head. He had noticed the local cinema’s advert only a few minutes earlier in his mother’s place upstairs.
She nodded, brightening.
‘We can talk about old times.’
‘Yeah!’ he agreed enthusiastically.
The Ritzy had been a good idea. Any place in Springburn or even in the city might have meant bumping into some friend or neighbour who would pass the word on to Madge. Over here at the other end of town in Clydend, Madge knew no one but his mother and Catriona and neither of them would be out after dark. Catriona had to stay in with her weans and his mother took so many tablets now that she was asleep half the time.
The tram stopped quite near the Ritzy and his eager stride had him outside the cinema and up the front steps in a matter of seconds.
She was waiting for him in the foyer, looking more desirable than any woman he had ever seen in his life. He gave her a
n appreciative wink.
‘Hello there, love, you look good enough to eat!’
She smiled.
‘Hello, Alec.’
He could hardly take his eyes off her as he bought the tickets and gestured to her to proceed him up the stairs to the best seats in the house. He did not touch her but made the gesture like a caress and knew by the purr in her eyes that she understood.
The film had already started when they reached the dark darkness of the gallery. They found two seats in the back row, and took their time settling down. Slouching back, Alec arranged his long legs as comfortably as he could in the small space available. Ruth relaxed and crossed her shapely legs, resting her elbows on the arms of her seat while she slowly eased off her gloves, one finger at a time like a strip-tease artist.
It was better entertainment than what was going on on the screen, but Alec forced his gaze if not his attention away from her. He was still making love to her. By stretching out the suspense, by not watching her, he was intensifying her eagerness to be watched. Making love was an art, and one he believed he had a particular talent for.
This time he had everything carefully thought out. They were going to enjoy each other, Ruth and he. This was going to be a night to remember.
In a few minutes he would change his position slightly so that he could drape his arm along the back of her seat. She would melt into him, her soft flesh pressing close. His arm would tighten round her shoulder. Her head would move back, face tilting, moist mouth opening with invitation.
But first he would kiss her hair and brow and ears and eyes. And all the time his hands would gently stroke and fondle.
He would make sure, though, that he did not go too far. Even if she begged him, and she probably would, he must not go too far. The back row of the Ritzy’s gallery was not for them. Not when there was a perfectly comfortable spare bed in his mothers place in Dessie Street.
He had a key to the house and by the time the show finished and they got back to Dessie Street his mother would have taken her sleeping tablet and be dead to the world in the kitchen bed. Ruth and he would slip quietly into the house, make straight for the bedroom and bolt the door.
The Breadmakers Saga Page 36