‘Aye, that’s war for ye. Oor Malcy coppin’ it’ll be the next bit o’ bad news.’
Teresa rolled her eyes and Wincey said, ‘Malcy has suffered enough. They’ll surely not put him into any more fighting.’
‘Would ye listen to her,’ Granny howled sarcastically. ‘She’s one that did come up the Clyde in a banana boat.’
Erchie lit up a half-smoked Woodbine. He inhaled with rare appreciation. He had to ration his smokes to a half at a time, they were so scarce now. ‘Are ye gonnae write to him again tonight, hen?’
‘Well, I hadn’t planned on it, Erchie. I wrote a few days ago, remember.’
‘Och, but the poor laddie’s got nobody else, an’ he’s far from home. Ah’m sure it cheers him up to get aw the news from auld Glasgow.’
Wincey shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’
And so after their meal, they all settled round the table again, Wincey with the notepad and pen.
Erchie said, ‘Tell him no’ to worry about the bombs up here. We’re aw fine. It was nothin’ like as bad as London. Mind an’ tell him that.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Wincey tucked her hair behind her ears and began to write, reading out loud every now and again.
‘Dear Malcy,
you remember the kitchen? Well, it’s still the same. The fire’s crackling and sparkling in the grate. There’s the brass candlesticks and the black tea caddy with the Japanese picture on it. Tea’s rationed now, of course, so the caddy’s never as full as it used to be. But there’s still the same cream curtains over the hole in the wall bed, and the matching valance hiding Granny’s hurly bed underneath it. And there’s the same green linoleum on the floor, and the rug in front of the fire that Granny had made with lots of bits of coloured rags. At the moment we’re all sitting round Teresa’s scrubbed wooden table. Erchie is wearing his bunnet as usual, Teresa is in her floral, wrap-around pinny and checked slippers, and Granny is keeping cosy in her fawn crocheted shawl. We’ve tucked a tartan blanket around her knees because she got a bit chilled sitting through at the front room window. Erchie says not to worry about Glasgow being bombed. We’ve got the Home Guard very active here. There’s even machine gun posts around the city. My father helps to man one. He does all sorts of things to help. He’s making a great job of growing vegetables too and he often gives some to Teresa so that she can make her soup. He hasn’t a very big garden so he even grows things on the earth covering the Anderson shelter. It’s a great help getting the vegetables. Teresa says she’d never manage any soup without them. She sends you her love. Erchie says to tell you that Willie Henderson’s joined the Navy and Benny McKay was turned down for the RAF and was terribly disappointed. His eyesight let him down so it’s still the factory for him. He and Erchie are about the only men left there. Granny says she hopes you’re behaving yourself. You’ll have her to answer to when you come back if you’re not. She still has her blether with old Mr McCluskey out in the close every day and she still gives his daughter cheek, which never fails to infuriate Miss McCluskey. Teresa says she’ll give you a welcome home party when you come back, and she’ll use up everyone’s rations in one go, but nobody will mind. We’ll all be so glad to see you come home safe and sound. We hope your injuries have healed all right. We’re all well except for Granny’s arthritis, which flares up worse every now and again, but as Erchie says, she’s a tough old bird and she’ll be belting out a song at your welcome home party, don’t you worry. Florence and the twins send their love as well. The twins hope you’ll always keep an eye out for Joe and Pete, and see that they’re OK. They were so glad that you managed to keep together the way you did. They’re looking forward to their own welcome home party for Joe and Pete. They’re keeping their houses lovely for the boys coming home. They’re sure Joe and Pete will be prouder than ever of their nice homes. They say they can’t wait to hear what Joe and Pete think of some of the improvements they’ve made and the lovely velvet curtains they’ve hung in their front rooms—blue velvet in Joe’s house and gold in Pete’s. The twins say Joe and Pete’ll just love these curtains when they see them.’
‘I think that should do,’ Wincey said to the others.
‘Ye huvnae said much about yersel’, hen.’
‘Nothing much to tell, Erchie.’
Wincey signed the letter, folded it and put it into an envelope.
‘At least it’ll keep him in touch,’ Teresa said. ‘I’m sure Malcy will be glad of that. It’s very good of you, dear.’
‘Ye could have said more about Springburn,’ Granny complained. ‘Ye never even mentioned the Sally Army band, an’ ye never telt him about Mrs McGregor’s man, and wee Jimmy McGregor getting killed.’
‘For goodness sake, Granny, have a wee bit of sense,’ Teresa snapped.
‘Ah cannae open ma mouth these days.’ Granny chomped her gums in agitation.
‘Never mind, Granny,’ Wincey said. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘Thanks, hen. Ah miss ye when ye go away at weekends. Ye’re the only one that’s nice to me these days.’
Teresa rolled her eyes and Erchie said, ‘Ye’re a right auld blether, Ma.’
Granny ignored him and asked Wincey, ‘How’s yer mammy and daddy gettin’ on, hen?’
‘Fine, thanks, Granny.’ Turning away, Wincey thought sarcastically, ‘Oh just fine.’
1941
23
‘Is that another letter from Wincey?’ Pete asked.
He passed it over for Pete to read. After a minute or two Pete groaned. ‘Listen to this, Joe.’ And he read out the bit about Euphemia and Bridget.
It was Joe’s turn to groan. ‘Fuckin’ curtains. Can you beat it? What do I care about fuckin’ curtains?’
Pete nodded in agreement. ‘I don’t know what to write to Bridget. I feel as if I haven’t much in common with her any more.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Pete said gloomily.
Malcy replaced the letter in its envelope. ‘Och, the girls don’t mean any harm. They just don’t know how things have changed for us. You’ll be able to explain to them once you get back home.’
‘The trouble is,’ Joe said, ‘I still love the silly wee midden.’
‘How about you, Malcy?’ Pete asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You and Wincey?’
Malcy looked astonished. ‘Me and Wincey?’ he echoed. ‘That would be a turn up for the book. She always hated the sight of me.’
‘Doesn’t sound as if she hates you now. She’s going to a lot more trouble keeping in touch with you than the twins are doing with us.’
‘Well, I know, but …’
‘But what?’
Malcy tried to laugh. ‘You don’t really think she might be interested? I mean, in me?’
‘Are you daft, or something,’ Joe said. ‘Of course she’s bloody interested. She’s writing to you every other day, isn’t she?’
‘I know but …’
‘Never mind your stupid buts, Malcy. Get in there man. She’s one hell of a good catch.’
Such a thought had never occurred to Malcy before. Wincey of all people. He’d thought of her before right enough, and he remembered lots about her. He’d never imagined, however, anything like what he was trying to imagine now. He could accept that she had changed towards him. Even before he’d left Glasgow, she hadn’t seemed too bitter. Hadn’t seemed bitter at all, in fact. He reread all her letters and began to detect an increasing warmth in them. They certainly gave no indication of either bitterness or hatred.
Then he had an attack of anxiety and lack of self confidence. His face and scalp were scarred. He studied his reflection in the mirror. The doctor had assured him that it would heal in time and if he was lucky, it would only leave a faint mark. If he was lucky. Had he ever been that lucky? He tried to put Wincey out of his mind, but it wasn’t easy because her letters kept on coming. In one of his letters he’d half jokingly referred to his scars and said that he now had a face that only a mother could lov
e—and he hadn’t even a mother. In her next letter, she said what did looks matter. It was the person that was inside that was important.
For the first time she signed her letter ‘Love, Wincey’. Previously she’d signed ‘Sincerely, Wincey’ or ‘Kind Regards, Wincey’. He read the ending of her last letter over and over again. ‘Love, Wincey’. ‘Love, Wincey’. ‘Love, Wincey’ until it turned into ‘Wincey love, Wincey love, oh Wincey love’.
The next time he wrote to her, he spoke of his longing to get back to Glasgow. But there was so much he wanted to tell her that he couldn’t put in a letter. He tried to give her some hints about recent events in the south and why leave had been cancelled, but he learned from a subsequent letter from her that almost everything he wrote had been censored. Malcy reckoned such strict censorship wasn’t really necessary. He no longer believed there was going to be an invasion, and by the look of things, Hitler had changed his tactics and was now trying to bomb the civilian population into submission. Even Glasgow was beginning to get it, albeit not as badly as London and elsewhere in England.
Malcy was becoming heartily sick of the whole business. He’d just missed being sent abroad again to fight. His shoulder and arm had not improved enough and he still had to wear a sling. He’d also caught a dose of flu. Poor old Joe and Pete had not been so lucky and were gone. He couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever see them again. He hadn’t relished the job of telling Wincey about that. The boys had been packed off so suddenly that they hadn’t had the chance to write to the twins before they left.
Wincey had written back saying it hadn’t been much of a Christmas and New Year for any of them. Teresa had made an eggless Christmas cake with carrots, of all things. He couldn’t imagine it. She said shops were hiring out cardboard cakes, especially for weddings. They were decorated with chalk icing sugar and a real, much smaller cake was underneath the cardboard cover.
The twins were very worried about Joe and Pete and hadn’t felt very festive. Granny had talked wistfully and in some detail about the family she’d lost, and about her dead husband. It was something she’d never done before and it worried them all. Wincey’s letters were vivid and she portrayed Springburn Road and the Avenue and Wellfield Street and the ‘Wellie’ cinema so clearly that it brought a lump to his throat. Many’s the time he’d sat in that flea pit of a picture house. There was sometimes an amateur variety show in the interval, and he and some of his pals used to boo and throw orange peel at the performers. Then there were the public baths in Kay Street and the Balgrayhill, leading to Springburn Park. He’d often fished for minnows in the pond there and collected them in a glass jam jar filled with water.
Now there was the Gourlays’ house near the top of the Balgray. If he walked up there now, no doubt he’d see Granny wrapped in her fawn crocheted shawl, hunched forward, glasses balanced on the edge of her nose, peering out of the front room window. Or her wheelchair would be parked in the close beside her old pal, Mr McCluskey. He would gladly give a year’s pay and more to be able to walk up that hill and into that close right now.
Malcy tried not to get depressed but the physical pain he was in didn’t help. Still, he was lucky to have survived. He kept telling himself that. He managed to get a bit of time off and took the train into London. The journey seemed to take forever, as the train crawled cautiously along. In London, the devastation was terrible to witness and among the bombed buildings, notices had been stuck up reminding people that looting was punishable by death.
St Paul’s Cathedral had miraculously survived undamaged amidst a sea of fire. Everything around it was bombed. The fires had been so bad that they were very close to becoming fire storms—raging infernos so strong that people could be sucked into them. Malcy tightened his stomach against flutters of panic at the thought of that ever happening in Glasgow.
He was tempted to tell Wincey about what he had seen in his next letter, but didn’t want to frighten her. Although he couldn’t help thinking she was not a lady who would be easily frightened. Not with that steady stare. He began to realise just how much he admired her. Again he felt lucky. Without Wincey and the rest of the Gourlays, he would have had nothing, and no one, to go back to.
He’d thought he’d got used to that long ago. He was illegitimate, didn’t know to this day who his father was, and when he’d been very young, his alcoholic mother had abandoned him. He’d been discovered stealing food from a grocer’s shop and handed over to the police. They had taken him home only to find there was no one there. He’d been trying to survive on his own. From there he was taken to an orphanage. He ran away from there more times than he could remember. Eventually he’d got a job. He’d got digs. He was determined to make it, and dreamed of being wealthy. He was going to make something of his life, to show everyone who ever doubted him.
Now, showing them didn’t matter any more. Everything had become very simple. He lived for the moment. Survival was the only thing that mattered. He needed to survive to get back to Glasgow. He needed to get back to Granny and Erchie and Teresa and Florence and the twins.
And Wincey.
24
The routine was now so familiar to Granny that she could have done it herself. She had come to enjoy it almost as much as the bewhiskered and bescarfed Mr McCluskey. First the old man got his pipe and his knife ready. He cleaned out the dead tobacco from the pipe and gave it a knock to loosen any remnants at the bottom. After that he took the plug of tobacco from the pouch and cut a slice off it. He rubbed the slice between his hands until it was all loose and small. Then he filled it very carefully into the pipe, making sure it was not too tight. After that he put the pipe in his mouth and gave it a suck to make sure air was coming through. Next he took a box of matches, sparked a match, applied it to the pipe and sucked contentedly. It made Granny feel contented too.
‘Aye, ye like yer smoke, auld yin,’ she said.
‘Aye,’ Mr McCluskey agreed.
After a while Granny said, ‘See war, ah mind seein’ at the pictures the Germans dive bombin’ an’ machine gunnin’ folk in Spain. Do you?’
‘Ah do. Ah mind the Daily Worker said it wis a rehearsal for the bigger war tae come.’
‘Aye,’ Granny said, ‘an’ the Daily Worker wis right, wisn’t it?’
‘Aye,’ agreed Mr McCluskey.
Granny said, ‘See if that siren goes again the night, come into oor lobby, Mr McCluskey. There wis about a dozen o’ us the last time. Them frae upstairs came as well. We shut aw the lobby doors, ye see, so that nae glass or any o’ that shrapnel stuff could come flyin’ in. Tell yer lassie she’d be welcome as well. It’s no’ good to be on yer own at a time like that.’
‘Ah’ll tell her, but whether she’ll come in or no’ is another story. An’ ah widnae like tae leave her.’
‘Ah’ll get Teresa to speak to her.’
‘She’s a nice lassie, your Teresa.’
‘Aye.’ Granny would like to have said—but didn’t, ‘No’ like your lassie. That bitch wouldn’t even let you into our house to enjoy yer smoke.’
‘Don’t you dare go into anyone’s house and fill it with your filthy smoke, and give me a showing up,’ she’d warned.
Granny was well wrapped up with a muffler wound round her neck and hanging down the front of her shawl. Although it had been a lovely spring day, a March wind was blowing through the close. Earlier Florence said the river was all shiny and beautiful when she’d looked out her window in Clydebank. Now the wind tugged at the rug protecting Granny’s legs and ankles.
Mr McCluskey, despite his bunnet and muffler, must be feeling the chill because he had no rug or shawl wrapped around him. His jacket and trousers had worn pretty thin too, Granny noticed. It worried her. She knew only too well how your blood got thin when you were old and you were easily chilled. Poor old Mr McCluskey could catch his death of cold. The selfish bitch of a daughter of his never even got him to the barber’s often enough—certainly not recently. His white hair was straggling down from
his bunnet and his moustache looked neglected as well. He wasn’t in a wheelchair but he was a bit shaky on his feet and would need a helping hand or an arm to hang on to to get him down the road to the barber’s.
‘A bloody disgrace,’ Granny had told Teresa. And Teresa had promised to ask the barber if he’d call up to see Mr McCluskey.
‘Although,’ Teresa added, ‘dear knows what Miss McCluskey will say about me interfering, Granny.’
‘Och, tell the barber to kid on that he just happened to be passin’ the close. Warn him no’ to let on that it was us that put him up to it.’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll try.’
She was a good lassie, right enough. She never thought twice about inviting everybody to shelter in their lobby if there was an air raid. There was a brick shelter in the back yard but it had no lights, no seats, no heating—nothing. It was a damp, dark horror of a place and nobody wanted to set foot in it. Especially Teresa, because dampness tended to go for her chest. Granny sat up all night in her wheelchair and tried to get a few minutes sleep when there was a raid on. Everyone else sat either on one of the chairs Teresa had brought from the kitchen, or they crouched on cushions on the floor. At first they had a bit of a blether—caught up with everyone’s news. Then they had a singsong, more in an effort to drown the noise from outside than anything else. Eventually, fatigue overcame them and they just sat dozing, and listening to the racket, and trying not to feel afraid. Teresa always wanted to go through to the kitchen and make everyone a cup of tea but no one would let her in case a piece of shrapnel or a bullet got her. They’d heard of that happening to other folk. None of them were sure what was going on outside and causing the bedlam of noise.
In the morning when they emerged, there never seemed to be any bomb damage. At least not as far as they could see in Springburn. Erchie said it was the noise of anti-aircraft guns trying to shoot the bombers down. There were bombers right enough because the drone of them could be heard as loud and heavy as if they were only inches above the roof.
Clydesiders at War Page 14