The Dear Green Place

by Archie Hind

  ‘Right. He’s a great composer, but don’t let that frighten you. He understood growth you see – and he wrote this piece especially for people like us. Now look, what does it say? Moderato – not too fast. The key signature?’

  ‘In G,’ Sadie said.

  ‘One sharp, Mrs Anderson. You don’t know if it is in G until you play it. Common time – you know what that is. So you take it just a bar at a time. And the changes of harmony – read the chord and not just the separate notes. Like I showed you – you don’t read, you recognise. Now off you go –’

  And Sadie, reassured, had tried again to play the sonatina, but this time without fear. She had gone home and practised the piece and then had tried to play it to Alec and the two boys. Until then she hadn’t fully realised how much Alec and Colin disliked her piano lessons, because they didn’t fit their idea of her. Their objection was no less strong for having no specific grounds. When Sadie had played to them, ‘just to show how I’m getting on,’ they couldn’t restrain their jocular remarks.

  ‘Listen to Myra Hess,’ Alec said.

  Colin, who felt he had some right to musical taste because he enjoyed a collection of records by Thelonius Monk, Coltrane, Mulligan, Brubeck et al, was too sophisticated for the little sonatina and did not try to hide a response that mingled indifference with amusement. When she stopped he had taken her seat at the piano and played some staccato chords, among them the inevitable flattened fifth. Then he had laughed and played that chord again, exaggerating the affected jerk of the right shoulder and stylishly splayed fingers of many jazz pianists, saying, ‘Aye, how about playing some music Ma?’

  Sadie suspected how McKay would have snorted contemptuously, dismissing Colin’s display as infirmity, but Colin brought authority to his blues chord because of its supposed unpretentiousness, because it was not Beethoven. ‘You want to get with it Ma,’ he said and moved from the piano stool with a kind of sarcastic elegance.

  Sadie was hurt and disappointed. For all of Hugh’s ‘That’s great, Ma, you’re doin’ really great,’ she knew he appreciated her playing less than he wanted to soothe her, which was no defence against the aggressive indifference of the other two.

  Then Alec said, ‘Clash the pans Sadie, we’re a’ hungry.’ For a day or two after she had to force herself to the keyboard and in spite of her stubbornness the playing had faltered.

  And now the absence of the piano in the kitchen reminded her of a further check.

  They had been sitting at their tea when the doorbell rang. Hugh got up to answer, returned and had jerked his thumb towards the lobby saying, ‘There’s a wumman to see you, Ma. I think she’s from the next close.’

  Sadie went to the door and recognised Mrs Anthony, whose kitchen was through the wall from hers. It seemed likely that she wanted to borrow something for she stood with folded arms, smiling ingratiatingly until Sadie smiled back. Then Mrs Anthony opened her mouth and after a huge intake of breath said, ‘Mrs Anderson I’m awfully sorry to bother you Mrs Anderson but –’

  Then came another great intake of breath held for a moment with open mouth before the words came in a rush: ‘Is-there-somebody-in-your-house-plays-the-piano?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Sadie answered, ‘I – somebody was practising.’

  ‘Aye.’ Mrs Anthony’s voice then rose to the pitch of complaint. ‘It’s just that I can hear it in the kitchen.’

  ‘I’m very sorry Mrs Anthony. I didn’t think it would be disturbing anybody.’

  ‘Oh, its no’ disturbing me .’

  ‘And it hasn’t been played at any unreasonable times.’

  ‘It’s no’ that but – you see my man’s on constant night shift.’

  Sadie suddenly felt shocked and hurt. She had always tried to give no cause for complaint and was appalled by this new mundane objection to her piano. Her eagerness for music was being dragged onto the stairhead, made a reason for unpleasantness. She tried to answer but instead opened her mouth and silently moved her lips, her hands twisting the corner of her apron. The woman said, ‘I’m sorry but you understand he’s got to get his sleep.’

  The woman’s cringing manner irritated Sadie. Her hurt changed to anger only shown by the prim line of her mouth. She said, ‘I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.’

  ‘I’m sorry but – I don’t want you to think I’m complaining. But it was an awful noise and I mean Sam had a sore head going to his work and I thought to myself there wasn’t any necessity for it –’

  Sadie’s temper broke. The complaint was unfair because Mrs Anthony’s man (as she called him) could have slept in the front room if the piano disturbed him so much. Sadie didn’t point that out. Almost in tears she protested, ‘But you are complaining!’

  Mrs Anthony’s mouth opened but her intake of breath was cut off short. She shut her mouth, swivelled her face slowly round to look at Sadie, averted her eyes and smiled again. ‘I’m not trying to cause trouble Mrs Anderson.’

  ‘I’m quite sure you’re not,’ Sadie said, ‘I’m quite sure you’re not. It’ll no’ happen again. Don’t worry.’

  Sadie shut the door in the woman’s face and went back into the kitchen and burst into tears. ‘The sleekit auld –’ she couldn’t continue for she was gasping with indignation. ‘She was complaining about the piano.’

  ‘Aye, we heard her,’ Alec said. ‘But you can’t blame her if her man’s on the night shift.’

  Sadie just said ‘Oh!’ and stamped round the table and sat down violently on her chair. She was crying and lifting the hem of her apron to wipe her face. It was, unusually, Colin who saved the situation. He spread his hands apart and shrugged.

  ‘If he was a’ that bothered why’d he no’ sleep ben the room?’

  ‘Aye, right enough,’ Alec said.

  ‘You might have thought of that,’ said Sadie through her tears.

  ‘It’s no that but –’ Colin said and he grinned at his mother, ‘we want our tea in peace.’

  ‘It’s no’ that but – you don’t want to greet about it Ma,’ Hugh said.

  Alec grinned too. ‘It’s no that but – pass the salt.’

  ‘It’s no that but – so it is.’

  Sadie sniffed and smiled a little and Hugh said, ‘It’s no that but – blow your nose Ma.’

  She blew her nose.

  ‘It’s no that but – do you usually blow your nose on your apron Ma?’

  Sadie started laughing with tears still on her face. She tried to say, ‘It’s no that but,’ and burst into a fit of giggles.

  ‘Wipe your face Ma and don’t worry about it.’

  As they were finishing their tea Sadie said, ‘We’ll have to move the piano ben the room.’

  Alec and the boys nodded. Alec had gone to sit in the chair by the fireplace, taking his cup of tea. He had lit a cigarette and was reading the evening paper. When Sadie made it clear she wanted the piano shifted at once he folded the paper and slapped it on his lap.

  ‘The night? F’r Gawd’s sake, Sadie. It’s Friday night.’

  ‘Ah know it’s Friday night,’ Sadie said, ‘but I practise on a Friday night when you’re a’ oot. And I’ll feel uneasy if I think I’ll be disturbing anyone.’

  ‘But auld Anthony’ll no be sleeping the night. He’ll be away oot for a drink.’

  ‘I suppose so. But if we put if off it’ll no get done o’er the weekend. And you’ll keep putting it off.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be goin’ oot the night.’

  ‘We’re a’ supposed to be goin’ oot,’ said Colin.

  ‘You’ve plenty of time. It’s only the back of six.’

  Alec sighed. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘in a minute. I’ll just finish my fag.’ He rattled his paper open again.

  While he read and smoked and Sadie cleared the tea things Colin had tried the piano for weight. Standing at one end he gripped it, tugged vigorously and nothing happened. He then tried lifting the end with no more success.

  ‘Either I’m a seven-stone wea
kling or this damn thing’s glued tae the wall.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Hugh said. ‘Oot the road and I’ll have a bash.’ He shuffled up to the end of the piano and keeping his back straight, bent his knees and gripped it low down. When he straightened his knees one end was raised several inches. He swivelled the end out and let it down gently. ‘I reckon you must be a seven-stone weakling.’

  Colin felt admiringly the bicep Hugh boastfully offered him. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it’s well seen your Ma feeds you.’

  ‘She disnae feed me,’ Hugh said, ‘she puts it out on a plate and I feed myself.’

  ‘I know. She leaves it on the bottom of your cage.’

  The two boys began wrestling and Alec put his newspaper down, his reluctance to help shift the piano gone now it had become a matter of physical demonstration. ‘Ach,’ he said, ‘I’ve got mair years than the baith of ye.’ Without any more ado he got up, took the other end of the piano and lifted it so that the instrument now stood parallel to the wall. ‘There,’ he said, flexing his shoulders like an athlete limbering up. ‘It’s just a knack.’

  Sadie had gone ben the room to clear a space for the piano. The recess here held a big double bed hidden by curtains. Though Colin’s and Hugh’s bedroom it was also furnished as a sitting room with a TV set, big uncut moquette sofa in the middle of the floor. Beside the fireplace was a wardrobe tall as a man with deep blanket drawers underneath. One wall was clear, except for a long narrow table with an empty flower vase on a strip of embroidered cloth. This table, of highly polished dark wood, Sadie moved into the bow of the window, then pulled the heavy velour curtains across and noted that they hid the table almost completely. She went back to the kitchen.

  ‘You can bring it though now.’

  The castors on the piano were stiff and could not run freely on the thick pile carpet. Alec and Hugh, with small lifts and turns, advanced it steadily ignoring Colin who accompanied them crying, ‘Heave ho me hearties! Port her helm, three points to starboard!’ Suddenly Alec yelled, ‘Put it down,’ and dropped his end.

  ‘Whassamatter?’ asked Hugh.

  ‘I’ve just remembered,’ Alec said, ‘the TV’s ben the room.’

  ‘Oh, f’r Gawd’s sake!’ Hugh clutched at his temples. ‘I thought you’d broken your back.’

  ‘Aye, but the TV’s ben the room.’

  ‘It’ll no’ matter. I’ll no’ play the piano when you watch TV,’ said Sadie. Alec looked at her sceptically until she said, ‘I’ve never even practised when you’re in the house, never mind when you watch TV.’

  ‘Right enough,’ Alec conceded, then spat on his hands and stooped.

  ‘Gangway,’ Colin shouted, ‘they’re at it again.’

  Alec said, ‘Standing about chirping doesnae help.’

  ‘It’s called division of labour,’ said Colin, ‘you shove while I grunt.’

  ‘Division of labour?’ said Alec. ‘Stick the handle of the brush up my arse and I’ll sweep the lobby floor on the way through.’

  ‘Alec!’ said Sadie, ‘There’s nae need for that language.’

  They got the piano into the lobby where its castors ran freely on the linoleum until it stuck against the big wooden coal-bunker. Alec and Hugh lifted one end and swivelled the instrument round to get it past, but as Alec was gripping the strap across the piano back the castors suddenly moved and his hand was jammed again the wall. He yelled, pulling the hand out and stuck it under his oxter.

  ‘Jesus O’Connor Daly Mulligan O’Christ,’ he said, ‘I’ve skint my knuckles.’

  Colin and Hugh started laughing then saw he was annoyed, having taken one of those knocks on a sensitive part where pain is out of all proportion to damage. He stood shaking the hand loosely, gasping, his eyes bright with pain and indignation. ‘Bloody laugh!’ he said, ‘I’ve only had a square yard of skin off the back of my haun.’ He looked at the knuckles. Skin was knocked from the top of each and a dark bruise was spreading on the surrounding skin. He went to the kitchen and turned on the tap over the hand. Sadie filled the basin with hot water and Alec plunged the hand alternately in the basin water and under the cold tap. After a while he said, ‘That’ll dae,’ and dabbed the injured hand carefully with a clean towel while Sadie hovered anxiously watching. When his hand was dry she fixed strips of sticking plaster across the knuckles.

  Colin and Hugh swaggered back into the kitchen brushing their hands jauntily together. ‘Nae bother,’ Hugh said.

  Alec, putting his waistcoat on, told Colin, ‘I’m glad to see you finally got working.’

  ‘Oh, you can aye depend on me when the chips are down.’

  Alec, scowling and huffy, flexed the fingers of the hurt hand, saying, ‘These’ll stiffen.’ He slowly started fastening the buttons of his waistcoat, ostentatiously favouring the fingers with the skinned knuckles. Colin said, ‘Well, we’ve earned our pint the night.’

  They all put on their jackets and left.

  Sadie washed and put away the dishes, then carried the piano stool from the kitchen into the room. Opening the lid she took out her music and put it on the stand. Instead of practising the sonatina she played a few scales then sat, hands in lap, back slumped, shoulders lax, her head thrown back, staring at the blank wall above the piano. She had been upset by Mrs Anthony’s complaint, then by Alec’s injury, and the scales showed the piano responded to her mood and sounded flat, toneless, as if the action was clogged. She felt in herself a kind of grittiness, almost physical, like the unpleasant feeling when emptying the grate and coal-ash blew into her hair. As if life was a frictional process always throwing off this abrasive, coarse dust which clogged her own action.

  * Oos (rhymes with goose): Glaswegian for fluffy dirt

  * Rubato: musical term for blurred, distorted rhythm

  Editor’s Postscript

  At this point, sometime in the early 1970s, Archie Hind stopped writing Fur Sadie and gradually or suddenly lost interest in completing it, lost it so thoroughly that he retained no copy. The preceding fragment has been edited from a photocopy of pages he gave in the early 1990s to John Linklater, then Literary Editor of The Herald, who occasionally commissioned Archie to write book reviews. Even that had some pages missing from the centre, but these were found printed in a 1973 edition of the Scottish International magazine, so though lacking a conclusion, the start is continuous.

  In January 2008, when John Linklater asked Archie why he had not finished the book. He answered in the words of another writer, ‘It developed a slow puncture.’ I had discussed the book with Archie thirty years earlier, having read enough to have fallen in love with the heroine. Archie had then been definite that the novel was going to end (unlike The Dear Green Place) on a triumphant note. How this would be achieved he now refuses to speculate, which makes it inevitable for the readers to do so. Sadie’s piano playing has brought her domestic life to a crisis. She can no longer keep it out of her family’s earshot and even a neighbour has started complaining. How can her talent – her life develop without splitting up what, by any decent standards, is a good marriage? For it is obvious that the important men in her life, husband, sons, and that great teacher McKay, cannot be reconciled.

  Yes, the theme of this book is also in Dickens’ Great Expectations, Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and most novels by D. H. Lawrence – the conflict between warm but constrictive working communities and an imaginative freedom that operates like a curse, for how can it achieve emancipation without the freed spirit joining the damned upper classes. Sadie, however hard working and talented, is too old to have become a concert pianist, and it seems unlikely that she would ever join a band of popular musicians. Could she become a singer’s accompanist? Might she have found support in her sympathetic older sister Mary? Her friend Anna vanished completely when Sadie’s schooldays ended – might she have reappeared, and to what effect? None of these questions can be answered. To present a problem our society has still not solved, and present it believably and sympathetically in mid-twentieth c
entury Glasgow, is as much as could be expected of a writer having to earn a living in many other ways.

  This book ends with an article from the Scottish International of August 1973. The owners of the Upper Clyde Shipyards had announced the end of Glasgow shipbuilding, as they were preparing to invest in yards outside Scotland. The Glasgow shop stewards led their workers to occupy the yards in a well organised work-in. This was the first and biggest attempt to save a major Scottish heavy industry, and for several weeks that event brought Glasgow and its working-class spokesmen into the centre of British political news. The eventual failure of the effort heralded the steady closure of every other major Scottish industry (coal mining, car manufacture, steel production) through the rest of the century. This article shows Archie giving historic perspective to his eye-witness report.

  Alasdair Gray

  January 2008

  ‘Men of the Clyde’

  (from Scottish International, August 1973)

  THE UPPER CLYDE – it was just a little strip of river, barely half-a-dozen miles of it and only yards in width with hardly enough draught to take a barge. On its banks a few small burghs, a few small villages and the small city of Glasgow, dependent on commerce, textiles, a little manufacturing and tobacco trading. Further inland there were coal seams and iron ore lying beneath the farmlands and ducal estates belonging to the effete, mad or absent aristocracy. Otherwise nothing but a wet climate, a shallow river and, even then, long, long miles to an indifferent and alien government. Nothing, unless we consider the men and their inheritance. Men whose fathers had failed disastrously in the ambitious imperial venture at Darien, their hopes blocked and thwarted by English intrigue; men, evicted from their homes in the Highlands by absent landlords to make way for sheep; men driven from their Irish steadings by famine; and men – weavers, artisans, mechanics – unemployed and impoverished, their living standards brutally assaulted by new technical advances in the weaving and textile industries. The hard men, the men of this cold, northern, wintry land who had learned to take a special view of reality, a sour view, a harsh view; men whose characters were as obdurate as the reality which had formed them; men whose history had been violence, shock and dispossession. Dour, repressed, unimaginative, they had iron in their religion, in their memories, in their souls. It was not for them to express themselves in soft marble, or build in wood, or create in flimsy. Just as their spirit attained malleability only in the white heat and high pressure of passion so they chose their material which would shape only in the white heat of the foundry, the furnace, the forge and bend only under the repressed and contained force of the steam hammer. Their imagination was limited to reality and that reality was a world waiting for expansion. They were the first of the modern emergent nations. So they dredged the Clyde to take great draughts, they built the berths obliquely onto the cramped river, they dug into the earth for the coal and the iron and then subjected the world to an incomparable holocaust of design, invention and industry. It was more than a revolution – it was a renaissance. Watt introduced to the steam engine and the world the governor, the condenser, reciprocating motion. More than mechanical inventions these were models of containment, direction and timing taken from the psychic economy of the Calvinist soul. Cook gave the steam ship, the blacksmith Napiers, the iron hulls and the first great iron building yards; Neilson, the hot blast; Murdock, gas lighting; McIntosh, industrial chemistry; Rigby, the steam hammer; Elder, the compound engine; Kincaid, screw propulsion; MacAdam, the modern road surface.