They told her:
‘You’ll be able to think more clearly once you get home and back to normal.’
She held her daughter in her arms. She gazed at her face, tracing its each and every contour with her finger, then eased her finger into the little hand.
The nurse was impatient to be away.
‘I’ll have to take her now. You’ve just got to be brave.’
‘Sure, pal. Sure,’ Julie said, handing over the baby. Then before she could snatch another look or touch or say the word goodbye, the nurse turned on her heel, clipped smartly down the corridor, and disappeared through swing doors.
Julie watched the doors wham backwards and forwards, then shudder, then become still. She lifted her case and wandered outside. Part of her heart and soul seemed to have been wrenched away. She felt incomplete. All her instincts were screaming out in protest. Bewilderment made her take the wrong turning. She thought she would never get home and she did not care.
Her father was standing at the corner as usual. On the outside it was as if nothing had happened. The Gorbals looked exactly the same. Yet had there been so many shops that sold prams or baby clothes or toys or baby food before? The sight of each shop tormented her. And each baby in its mother’s arms and each child playing in the street were knives of anguish stabbing at her.
Her father had an old white scarf knotted at his neck and his cap pulled well down over his beaky face. He was shuffling from one foot to the other and rubbing and smacking at his hands and grinning.
‘Hallo, there, hen. Ah’ve got the kettle on. The tea’ll no’ take a minute.’
Off he scampered up the close to get everything ready as if she were just coming; home as usual after work.
She took her time, her hand on the bannister pulling herself up each stair.
‘Ah’ve got a confession tae make,’ he said once she had arrived in the house, taken off her coat, and flopped helplessly into a chair. ‘Ah bumpt intae that pal o’ yours - whit’s her name? A bonny fair-headed wee lassie.’
‘Catriona?’
‘Aye, that’s the one. Well, ah was up the town the other day fur a message in Woolworth’s and she collared me, hen. Ah couldni help it.’
‘You told her!’
‘She kept asking me. Ah didni know whit tae say.’
Julie sighed. ‘Oh, never mind. It can’t be helped now.’
‘Here, drink yer tea, hen. That’ll cheer you up. And you’ll be glad of yer pal, tae. She’ll be here in a minute. She wanted tae go and get you at the hospital but ah said you didni want anybody there. That was whit you said, wasn’t it, hen?’
Julie sipped at her tea and did not answer. She was saving her energy for the bright brittle act she would have to put on while Catriona or anyone else was there.
‘Och, never mind, hen.’ Her father hesitated, groping for words with which to comfort her about the child. ‘It’s best this way. This way, y’see, you’ll never know it.’
Tears spurted out of her eyes of their own accord. They splashed down her face and trickled along her jaw and down into the hollows of her neck.
She went on sipping her tea, not saying anything.
‘Och, dinni greet, hen. Them yins know what’s best for you, ah’m sure. You’re a young lassie yet, and bonnie tae. Now you’ll be able to meet some nice fella and get married again, eh? Fellas are no’ so keen if there’s somebody else’s wean … There’s the door, that’ll be your pal, now.’
In obvious relief he scuttled off to let Catriona in.
Julie got up, clattered her cup down on the table and fumbled in her pockets for a handkerchief.
Surprise at the changed appearance of Catriona momentarily switched her attention away from her own problems. Catriona’s fair hair was now plaited and circled her head like a little crown. She had always been small but she had lost weight and her delicate bone structure was more noticeable. She had acquired a fragile look with white skin drawn tight over her cheekbones casting dark shadows under her eyes.
In a way, although the colouring was completely different and they did not really look like one another at all, Catriona suddenly reminded Julie of Mrs Vincent.
They both seemed to possess the same genteel West End aura.
‘There’s a cup of tea in the pot if you want it,’ she told Catriona brusquely and then raised an eyebrow in her father’s direction. ‘What the hell are you hanging about with a face like that for? Either sit down and content yourself or get away out the road.’
‘Aye, aw right. I’ll away, hen. Cheerio the now.’
The outside door banged shut. Then Catriona said:
‘Oh, Julie!’
‘Well? Do you want a cup of tea?’
Catriona sank gently into a chair and nodded as if she could not trust herself to speak.
‘Before you start quizzing me,’ Julie said, ‘I’ll confess all. He was crazy about me. I was crazy about him. But he’s married and can’t get a divorce so we had to call it a day and that’s him out of the picture. They’ve advised me to have my baby adopted. They say it’s best from the baby’s point of view. A little girl, by the way, an absolute doll.’
She grabbed her handbag, found her cigarettes, lit one and breathed deeply at the smoke. Then she took out her powder compact and energetically powdered her face.
‘You can’t,’ Catriona said.
‘Can’t what, pal?’
‘Give your baby away. You’ll never be able to forget her, Julie. She’ll always be part of you. If you do this it’ll torment you for the rest of your life.’
‘This has nothing to do with you or anybody else. It’s my decision and my decision alone.’
‘You’ve just told me you’ve been advised to have her adopted.’
‘They say to think of what’s best for the baby. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.’
‘I don’t want to interfere …’
‘Well, don’t!’
‘But I must say this. I believe no one can feel the same for a baby as its own mother.’
‘I know what I feel.’ Julie sent a stream of smoke darting across the room. ‘I don’t need you to tell me how I feel. It’s my baby’s feelings I’ve got to think about, not my own.’
‘Julie, you could manage somehow.’
‘There you go again - talking about me - always from my angle.’
‘But are you sure …’
‘Look, pal, I know you mean well, but drop it, will you? I’ve told you, this is something I’ve got to decide for myself.’
‘Does Mrs Vincent know?’
‘She found out and came to see me at the hospital. I promised to go and visit her tomorrow.’
‘You must pop in and see me too when you’re so near.’
‘Sure! Sure! How are you getting on these days? Business doing well?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s a good locality, you see.’
‘Oh, I see. Aiverybody’s tairaibly, tairaibly refained and frightfully decent and all that. Not like in dirty, horrid, immoral old Gorbals!’
‘I only meant that Byres Road was a busy main street so there’s always plenty of passing trade as well as regular customers.’
Julie laughed.
‘Sure, pal! Sure! And your grand big house?’
‘As big as ever,’ Catriona replied in a light, bright voice.
‘And your husband?’
‘Oh, very well, thank you.’
‘And your family?’
‘Fine. Fine.’
Suddenly Catriona got up.
‘I shouldn’t have come just now, Julie, I’m sorry. You’re too soon out of hospital and have too much on your mind to be bothered with visitors. Please forgive me.’
Julie dragged at her cigarette.
‘Don’t give it a thought. I’m fine.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then? When you come to visit Mrs Vincent?’
‘Sure! Sure!’
She saw Catriona to the door and waved cheerily before shutting it.<
br />
Then she returned to the kitchen and the tears immediately overflowed again and made her crumple into a chair and just sit listening to the clock ticking her life away. Then her father came back for his meal and she jumped up and flounced about on her high heels getting everything ready.
‘Ah saw yer pal going away,’ her father said.
‘Oh?’
‘She was saying you’re going over there tomorrow.’
‘I might. And then again-’ Julie shrugged- ‘I might not!’
Chapter 23
‘Catriona! Catriona! Catriona!’
The faint wailing came from upstairs.
‘Mum, you should have seen me play football today,’ Fergus enthused. ‘Every time I got the ball I …’
‘Oh, shut up!’ she pleaded. ‘What do I care about football!’
‘Catriona! Catriona! Catriona!’
Knocking Fergus aside she hurried upstairs sweating with weakness and nauseated by the sensation of raw liver slithering between her legs. More and more each day she had to increase the padding around herself, had to struggle with the difficulties of bathing and trying to retain some of her normal fastidiousness about personal hygiene.
‘Catriona! Catriona! Catriona!’
‘I’m coming, Da!’
She dare not visualise what she might find. Life was just carrying her on regardless, buffeting her about.
He was not in his room.
‘Da! Where are you?’
She found him in the bathroom struggling with his braces. The stench was overpowering.
‘Bloody diarrhoea!’ he yelped. ‘Came on me so quick I’ve shitted my trousers.’
It was then she noticed the mess of faeces on the bathroom floor and realised that there was a trail of it all the way from the bedroom. It was even on her shoes.
She willed herself not to retch.
‘Came on so quick, y’see!’ the old man whined. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ He was shaking all over and staggering a little.
‘It’s all right, Da,’ she said. She was used to saying that. It had become a habit. ‘It’s all right, Da,’ she always said, when it was not all right at all.
She felt ashamed. She was terrified someone might come to the door or even smell the house out in the street.
She must be something very loathsome in God’s eyes. Now he seemed to be punishing her by rubbing her nose in dirt like an animal. If it was not stinking wet bedclothes it was this!
For a minute or two she just stood there looking at the mess, her stomach heaving.
The old man managed to pull down his braces but his blue-veined shivering hands still refused to cope with the buttons of his fly.
She thought of calling Fergus for help but checked herself. Fergus had a delicate stomach. He was easily nauseated; a hair, a chipped cup, a fly buzzing around the table could put him off his food. He would be ill if she brought him upstairs now.
She forced herself to go over and undo the buttons herself. She kept thinking:
‘I’ll never forgive Melvin for putting me and his father in this dreadful situation. I’ll never forgive him. Never!’
The old man leaned on her and it took all her strength to hold his weight up while at the same time struggling to peel off the stinking trousers.
‘I’ll away to my bed now,’ he said. ‘This is terrible!’
‘You can’t go like that. You’ll make the bedroom chairs and carpets and bedclothes all dirty. We’ll get everything off and get you into the bath. You’ll be all right.’
She ran the bath, then with painful avoidance of the old man’s eyes she stripped off the rest of his clothes, helped him across and half lifted him into the water. She sponged him down then dried him and hauled him out again. After wrapping the big towel round his skinny body she supported him as he stomped and staggered towards his room.
Then, armed with a pail of water and cloths and a bottle of disinfectant, she set about cleaning up the mess on all the floors. Tiny moans of distress escaped every now and again as the faeces stuck to her hands and splashed on to her clothes.
She felt God turning away from her, like her mother, with the same hatred, the same screwing up of the nose against something filthy and foul-smelling.
She harboured no resentment against the old man. Now that he too was weak and helpless and distressed it gave them something in common. But resentment was there, alternating in waves with her self-hate and misery, straining for release.
She kept thinking of Melvin. Their whole life together unrolled before her eyes. Every grievance she had ever nursed against him was remembered with bitterness. Especially the fact that when she had to get up early after a sleepless night, he lay on snoring for hours. He got enough sleep now all right. He knew how to take care of himself.
In her imagination she carried on long arguments with him and by the time she next saw him she was primed up ready at the drop of one wrong word to explode all the frustrations and hatreds of a lifetime on his head.
He was eating his breakfast when he remarked casually:
‘Your pal doesn’t seem to think much of you. Never even bothered to write and tell you why she didn’t turn up.’
‘Julie isn’t well just now, that’s all. I’ll hear from her. But it’ll be no thanks to you - you and your rudeness and downright bad manners when my friends do come. You purposely try and discourage them. You’re so selfish you want me just to be here on my own all the time, just pandering to your needs and being a slave to your precious house. You’d have me die alone here, alone and friendless, just as your first wife was.’
His eyes bulged with shock.
‘My Betty never wanted anyone else but me. You’ve gone off your nut.’
She was trembling violently but she went over to him and stuck her face close to his, her eyes glittering, her facial muscles tense. ‘I’m not like your first wife!’
‘I know,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘You couldn’t be like her if you tried.’
‘You gave her a really marvellous funeral, didn’t you? And you wanted plenty of people at that.’
‘All I did was make a passing remark about your pal not turning up and you suddenly, for no reason at all, go berserk about my Betty.’
‘You’re not going to have any fancy funeral here for me.’
‘You’re right there,’ he bawled back at her. ‘They can carry you out in a bloody orange box for all I care!’
‘Oh, I know you don’t care about me. I know you don’t care if I never have anybody to talk to.’
‘What do you mean-’ he began, but to his exasperation she suddenly burst into tears. ‘For God’s sake! All I said was …’
‘I know all you say,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m no use. I do nothing. Nothing!’ She repeated the word as if she could not believe it. ‘Nothing!’
‘It’s no wonder I can’t eat.’ His mouth twisted down and he jerked his plate away. ‘You’re enough to put anybody off their food!’
‘Your father could be dying. You don’t even care about him.’
‘Now it’s my father! Aw, shut up!’
Catriona could not reply because a sudden overpowering urge to vomit forced her to retreat to the privacy of the bathroom. She hung over the basin then slithered down on to the floor. She lay there for a long time before the pain and sickness passed and she was able to pull herself up as if out of a nightmare and return to the kitchen.
In the afternoon she made her way determinedly to the doctor’s once more. Surely at least he would be able to give her something for her stomach and the bouts of pain that were fast becoming unendurable.
She rang the bell of his house in which he used a couple of rooms for surgery and waiting accommodation. The doctor himself opened the door, his little grin at the ready. It always surprised her how old he looked. But this time he looked shabby as well, in an old cardigan and reading-glasses and brown checked slippers.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs McNair.’
‘Good afternoon, Doc
tor.’ She hesitated on the doormat, longing to sit down and waiting for him to invite her in. But he waited too, so she screwed up her face in pained embarrassed apology.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you’d give me something for my stomach. I’m not so bad at the moment but I have been awfully sick.’
‘If you come back tomorrow, certainly,’ he said. ‘This is my half-day.’
‘Oh.’ She stared helplessly at him. ‘I forgot.’
‘It’s perfectly all right,’ he assured her before gently shutting the door.
She stood for a long time on the doormat suspended in a fog of lethargy. It seemed to her that she had reached a point of no return. She could not go on any longer.
Eventually she turned away and wandered about the streets in a daze before it occurred to her to go into a telephone booth, search for the number of a solicitor, and dial for an appointment.
At home they were all waiting impatiently for her.
‘Where were you, Mum?’ the boys queried. ‘What’s for tea?’
‘Did you remember my tobacco?’ the old man wanted to know. ‘And where’s my paper?’
‘Where have you been all this time?’ Melvin demanded indignantly.
Questions, questions, questions. She avoided their eyes, hid deep inside herself in case anyone might suspect what she had done and where she was going next day. Silently, she moved about making their meal and then listlessly leant against the sink as she attended to the washing-up.
‘It’s time you snapped out of it,’ Melvin said. ‘Pulled yourself together. You go about here like a half-shut knife. No wonder you’re full of complaints. That’s bad for you for a start - bad posture. You should always stand straight and keep your shoulders well back. It’s all a question of willpower and physical jerks. I haven’t so much time to do mine now but there’s nothing to stop you from keeping fit. I’ll show you a few really good exercises.’
‘It’s a good sleep I need.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you from getting that.’
‘I’m up with your father every night.’
‘Well, that’s your fault. You worry too much, that’s your trouble. The old man takes a few nightcaps and you make a tragedy of it. Anybody would think it was the end of the world.’
The Breadmakers Saga Page 57