When the Lights Come on Again

by Maggie Craig

  With growing excitement she read of plans to pay full-time VAD nurses a wage if the international situation continued to deteriorate. During the Great War they’d all been volunteers. If that worked out, she might manage to get away from Murray’s sooner rather than later. Her first step was obviously to enrol for the first-aid classes.

  The recruitment evening for those was to take place in a church hall in Glasgow on the following Tuesday - thankfully another evening when her father was out regularly. If the classes were also on a Tuesday she was in clover.

  Lifting her head from the paper, Liz saw her mother regarding her with a worried frown. No prizes for guessing why. Suppressing her irritation at how her father managed to dominate his wife even when he wasn’t there, she set about reassuring her.

  ‘He can’t object to me doing a class, Ma. Surely. I do other night classes, after all, and he’s never said anything about them.’

  ‘I don’t know, Lizzie,’ said her mother nervously. ‘He might think you were trying to get round him, do what he forbade you to do.’

  ‘Forbade me?’

  The MacMillan family seemed to be living not only in a street named after the old Queen, but also during her reign. Liz turned eagerly to Eddie. He would back her up.

  ‘You can’t be serious, Liz.’ The words were clipped, his voice harsh.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, genuinely puzzled by his reaction. He’d always been her champion and he knew better than anybody how devastated she’d been by their father’s ban on her going for the interview at the Infirmary.

  ‘Don’t you see, Eddie?’ she asked. ‘This would let me start nursing almost straightaway - well, it’s not quite nursing, but I’d be learning about first aid and there’s the possibility of becoming a part-time auxiliary—’

  He interrupted her. ‘Don’t you see what this is all about, Liz? It’s all part of getting ready for war - and the more we do that, the more likely it is that we will go to war. We’ll be sucked into it.’

  He rose to his feet, pushing his chair back with a loud scrape. The strength of his feelings clearly required movement. He strode about the kitchen as he made his points, gesturing wildly at the newspaper lying open on the table in front of Liz.

  ‘That,’ he began. ‘All of that. Everything that you read in the capitalist press. It’s designed to create the war mentality—’

  ‘Eddie,’ said Liz, beginning to get angry herself, ‘we’re talking about the Red Cross. You know? The organization that helps alleviate the sufferings of war? Do you know what VAD nurses did during the Great War? They worked at the front, in field hospitals, tending the wounded.’

  Eddie snorted.

  ‘The vastly overprivileged daughters of the bourgeoisie and the upper classes playing at being Nursie?’

  Liz lifted her chin, infuriated by that sneering response. Sitting beside her at the table, Sadie had gone very still. She hated arguments, especially on the rare occasions when they broke out between her children, but Liz was too angry now to consider her mother’s feelings.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Eddie,’ she snapped. ‘If there’s going to be a war, there’s going to be a war. Nothing you or I do is going to make a blind bit of difference. And if it’s coming anyway, wouldn’t it be better to get ready for it?’

  He stopped pacing, came forward and gripped the back of his empty chair. ‘Liz, for God’s sake! I never thought you were that stupid!’

  Bristling, Liz sat up straight, more than ready to retaliate. Eddie, however, was in full flow. Taking one hand off the back of the chair he pointed once more at the newspaper.

  ‘That article’s appealing to naïve, idealistic girls like you who can’t see that it’s all designed to put the whole country - and the economy - on a war footing. People say we’re pulling ourselves out of the Depression. D’you know how we’re doing that?’ he demanded.

  He answered his own question. ‘By gearing up for war, that’s how. Factories and businesses - and hospitals. If you join the Red Cross you’ll be part of the capitalist war machine too!’

  That one took the biscuit.

  ‘That, Edward MacMillan, is the biggest load of—’

  Seeing her mother’s shocked face, Liz stopped herself just in time. She flung Eddie’s words back at him. ‘So I’m naïve, am I? Idealistic too? Well, pardon me for breathing. I didn’t realize either of those were hanging offences!’

  ‘Och, Liz, you don’t understand!’ He gripped the back of the chair with both hands and looked down at her despairingly.

  Her eyes flashing green fire, Liz lifted her face to him. ‘And you do, I suppose!’

  Abruptly, Eddie folded his arms across his chest, his demeanour all at once much calmer. Frighteningly calm.

  ‘I’ve studied history,’ he said. ‘Politics too. I know how things happen. History repeats itself. All the time.’

  Liz felt a tightness in her chest. The constriction rose into her throat and her head swam briefly. Shaking it to clear away the feeling, she met Eddie’s eyes. Then looked away again. Continuing this argument wasn’t going to get them anywhere - apart from upsetting Ma.

  ‘I think we’ll have to agree to disagree, Eddie.’

  ‘You think so?’ he asked stiffly. However, when Liz made an almost imperceptible movement of her eyes towards their mother, she saw by the answering flicker that he had caught the unspoken message.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, unfolding his arms, pulling out his chair and sitting down at the table. ‘You’re right. There’s obviously not much point in continuing the discussion.’ He put a smile on his face and turned to Sadie.

  ‘Shall we have another cup of tea, Ma?’

  Four

  In the middle of the following Tuesday afternoon, Miss Gilchrist sent Liz out on an errand. The office boy was off somewhere else, and there was an urgent letter to be delivered to Murray’s solicitors, who had offices further along the river towards Glasgow city centre.

  Liz was glad of the break: to get away from Eric Mitchell’s leers, because the office was hot and sticky and because she had a decision to make. Tonight was the enrolment evening for the first-aid classes.

  She had robustly defended the Red Cross to Eddie, but she had thought a lot about the points he had made. Could he possibly be right? Were they rushing pell-mell towards war, carried along by the sheer momentum of the thing?

  There was a kind of terrible drama about it all which was almost exciting, and her chances of becoming a full-time auxiliary nurse were all tied up with the possibility of war. Did that make her a warmonger?

  Walking along towards Jamaica Street Bridge, enjoying the breeze coming off the Clyde, Liz lifted her chin in defiance of that accusation. No, it damn well didn’t. Of course she didn’t want there to be a war, and she really couldn’t believe that her joining the Red Cross was going to influence things one way or the other. That was a stupid argument - and she would tell Eddie so ... as soon as they were speaking to each other again.

  Stopping to cross the road, she glanced at the newspaper vendor who had his pitch at the junction where the Broomielaw gave way to Clyde Street. There was a poster on his stand. Another Spanish city suffers aerial bombardment. Pictures.

  Liz wondered who went to the aid of the injured and the survivors there: the Spanish Red Cross, she supposed.

  She delivered the letter and stood for a moment on the stone steps of the lawyer’s office. The imposing entrance doorway was flanked by two huge stone figures, their limbs clothed in the garb of Ancient Greece. Their mighty heads bowed, they each supported a globe on their broad shoulders. That reminded Liz of her grandfather’s strongly voiced belief that Adolf Hitler wanted to rule the world.

  She gazed out across the busy street to the river and the houses beyond it. There was a dirty big grey cloud hanging over the Gorbals. Good. A downpour was exactly what this oppressively hot day needed. She made her way down on to the pavement.

  How would she feel if the bombs were raining down on Clydeban
k? What would she do if it was her own home town which was suffering?

  Her shorthand and typing skills wouldn’t be much use then. Let me through, I’m a stenographer. I can take dictation at eighty words per minute and sometimes I can even manage to read it back again afterwards.No, she didn’t think so.

  Eddie was going to accuse her of being part of the capitalist war machine once a day and three times on Sundays. Liz tossed her head, her generous mouth curving in reluctant amusement. A man walking past in the opposite direction threw her an admiring glance and tipped his hat. She didn’t notice him. Me and Adolf, she was thinking. Both of us out to rule the world.

  She couldn’t believe it After all it had taken her to get here, the effort, the soul-searching, the sheer trouble it might be going to cause at home, and between her and Eddie, the woman sitting in front of her was telling her that she was too young to join the Red Cross.

  ‘But I’m eighteen,’ she said, quite consciously squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up to her full five foot six. Sometimes Liz found her few extra inches a problem. She was taller than most women she knew - and a good few of the men.

  Tonight she was glad of her height - anything which would help impress the imposing-looking woman sitting behind a table in a draughty church hall at the top of Buchanan Street in Glasgow.

  Pen poised over a list, she looked up at Liz, her eyes narrowing. She was middle-aged, beautifully dressed and formidably elegant, her smooth blonde hair swept back into a French roll.

  Liz felt her cheeks grow pink under the careful appraisal. She was being sized up. She hoped she was making a good impression, but somehow she doubted it.

  Coming out of work at the end of the afternoon, she had made it along Clyde Street, through Dixon Street and up into St Enoch Square before the fat raindrops bursting as they hit the pavements had marshalled themselves into the torrential summer rainstorm which had been threatening all afternoon.

  She had thought about seeking the shelter of the huge Victorian railway station which occupied one complete side of the square, then decided against it. She’d be better off making a run for it. She’d no idea how long it might take to enrol and she didn’t want to risk getting in after her father came home at the end of his evening out.

  So she crossed Argyle Street and made a mad dash up Buchanan Street, the skirts of her raincoat getting soaked, traffic in the road next to her more than once splashing water over her feet and ankles. A horse-drawn coal lorry passed her. She spared a thought for the beast, a solid Clydesdale getting ready for the extra pull as the road began the climb towards the eastern end of Sauchiehall Street. Wisps of steam were rising off the animal’s warm back as the raindrops struck him.

  Liz herself was feeling unpleasantly warm on the inside, the rubberised material of her mackintosh sealing the heat of her exertions firmly in. The summer shirt-waister dress she wore beneath the raincoat was clinging to her. Since the morning had been hot and sunny, she hadn’t worn a hat today either. That meant that her dark brown hair had done what it always did in the wet - gone into a mass of unruly curls and waves. She could feel them, curling round her hot and sweaty temples. She must look like something the cat had dragged in.

  ‘I’m eighteen,’ she repeated, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the desk in her determination to put her case.

  The elegant lady smiled - and instantly seemed much less fierce.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s my point, my dear. You see, the Red Cross doesn’t have a junior branch - not as yet, anyway - and there might be things our helpers would be called upon to do... well ... that we feel youngsters like yourself shouldn’t see.’

  She was very refined, her cultured accent only just recognizable as belonging to the west of Scotland.

  ‘It’s very good indeed of you to come along to offer your services in the current crisis. Perhaps you’d like to leave your name and address and we can get in touch with you at a later date. If necessary.’

  The smile was apologetic. It was also dismissive. Any minute now she was going to raise her beautifully modulated voice in a shout. Next! Liz lifted her head and looked about her. Surely she couldn’t be the only younger person interested in enrolling?

  There was half a dozen registration tables set up around the hall. They didn’t have many customers as yet, potential volunteers presumably waiting for the rain to go off. The men and women waiting to receive them all looked ancient to Liz’s young eyes.

  A small knot of people stood a few yards away. Looking at the clothes and listening to the accents, she mentally categorized them as Bright Young Things. She was unlikely to get much help there. Anyway, they all looked a bit older than her, in their early twenties perhaps. She caught the eye of a tall young man who glanced over with an expression of polite interest on his face. He smiled at her.

  Hearing a discreet cough at her elbow, Liz turned. A pretty fair-haired girl stood there. Judging by the damp patches on the heavy woollen coat she wore, she too had only recently come in off the street. She took the few steps necessary to bring her to stand beside Liz. She was almost the same height as her, and about the same age.

  ‘I-I’d like to enrol too,’ she said. ‘I was w-wondering if you m-might be running classes in Clydebank?’

  Liz turned to her enthusiastically.

  ‘I’m from Clydebank too.’

  The girl, clearly nervous, gave her a little nod of acknowledgement. Both she and Liz turned to look anxiously at the woman behind the desk, who surveyed them for a moment or two before letting out a long, exasperated sigh.

  ‘My dear girls... you’re both very young—’

  Liz’s patience snapped. ‘Would we be too young to be bombed? If the war does come?’

  Her impassioned outburst fell into an uneasy silence. Every head in the echoing hall seemed to turn towards her, the other conversations going on grinding to an abrupt halt. The pale, shocked faces indicated that everyone present knew exactly what Liz was talking about. She obviously wasn’t the only person to have been struck by the newsreel pictures from Spain.

  Support came from an unexpected quarter.

  ‘The young lady has a point.’

  It was the tall young man who had smiled at her. He moved to stand behind the woman sitting at the desk, and Liz wondered if he was her son. While his accent wasn’t quite so refined as hers, he was very well-spoken, and their colouring was the same, his lanky frame topped with a thatch of hair the colour of a corn field. Assuming hers owes nothing to the peroxide bottle, thought Liz irreverently.

  Young lady, indeed! He could only be a year or two older than she was. What did her age matter, anyway? She was old enough to be out at work earning a living - which was probably more than this well-off chap had ever done. On the other hand, he did seem to be trying to help.

  Liz felt a spurt of amusement. To think that she, a daughter of Red Clydeside, was considering using one of the Idle Rich as an ally in her plans to join the Red Cross! Eddie would be doubly horrified.

  Mind you, what was that phrase he had used when he and Grandad had been arguing about the show trials in Russia? The end justifies the means? If this posh young gentleman could help her get enrolled, that was fine by her.

  She gave her unexpected knight in shining armour a broad smile and received one as warm and friendly in response. He had nice eyes. They were a warm hazel, a striking contrast with his fair hair.

  ‘After all,’ he said, ‘if the worst does come to the worst, Clydebank’s going to be one of the places that—’He broke off, looked embarrassed, and started again. ‘The Red Cross could do with a lot of volunteers in Clydebank...’ His voice trailed away.

  Liz knew exactiy what he had been about to say. Clydebank’s going to be one of the places that’ll get it. If war did come, the town on the banks of the Clyde, full of shipyards and factories, was going to be a prime target for enemy bombs. And all those yards and factories sat cheek by jowl with the packed three-and four-storey tenements which house
d the people who worked in them.

  Unexpectedly, somebody laughed. It was one of the Bright Young Things, a pencil-slim young woman with hair the same colour and length as Liz’s. Hers, however, was beautifully coiffed, curling smoothly under at the ends.

  ‘I thought you were all conchies down there,’ she observed, her voice an amused drawl. ‘Just waiting for the Germans to parachute down and help you start the revolution. Send all us lot to Madame la Guillotine. Isn’t that right, darling?’

  Coming forward, she slipped her arm through that of the fair-haired young man. Her last comment had been addressed to him, and now she turned and looked up at him with an expectant smile.

  Eddie would have said that the Bright Young Thing’s reading of modern politics was somewhat defective. She didn’t seem to know the difference between fascism and communism. All Liz knew was that the comments had made her blood boil. How dare she?

  It was true there was little appetite for war in Clydebank, its inhabitants still pinning their hopes on the League of Nations being able to find a peaceful solution to the continuing crisis. Damning her home town as being full of potential fifth columnists was, however, too much for Elizabeth MacMillan to take. Tossing her unruly head, she prepared to do battle.

  ‘Surely no sane person actually wants there to be a war?’ she asked haughtily.

  ‘And,’ she finished up, having made her points in her usual forthright manner, ‘personally I’m of the opinion that conscientious objectors deserve our respect. They stand up for their beliefs.’ She swallowed. Eddie might be going to be one of them.

  Squashing that thought, Liz smiled sweetly at her adversary. ‘We’ve got some in Clydebank,’ she said. ‘You’ve probably even got them in Bearsden,’ she added, ‘or wherever it is that you live.’

  ‘Well, really!’ came an older female voice, the precursor to a chorus of disapproving murmurs. Liz couldn’t make out all the words, but she could guess what was really being said. The lower orders just don’t know their place any more.