The Incomers

by Moira McPartlin

  ‘Blast! They’re on the party line again.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’ Ellie had asked.

  ‘I don’t know, but they can sure blether.’

  ‘Can we hear what they say?’ Ellie was intrigued with the idea of eavesdropping on the villagers.

  ‘Yes, but they sometimes know when you have picked the phone up, they can hear a click or something, or your breathing. They’ll shout, ‘get off the line.’ Anyway, it isn’t polite.’

  At first Ellie is too scared to try, but long days with only Nat to talk to had worn her fear to curiosity. After her incident with the policeman she had kept her head in her own world. But she knows that the longer she stays in this house the harder the temptation will be to resist listening again. She now knows when they are on the line listening to her blethers with Mrs Watson; she hears the click of the phone.

  The first time when she tries to phone the hoose to see if James is there she hears the voices chattering. As with the voice of the big girl Carol and the women in the waiting room, Ellie knows it takes a minute to tune in to the jumbled sounds. She picks up the word ‘toe’; she tries harder to make out more words. A lady tells another lady about her sore toe and having to go to a toe person with a name she could not pronounce. Once Ellie deciphers the words she feels guilty; she waits to be told to get off the line, she wants to be told to get off the line, but they do not. She puts the phone down quietly with a resolve not to try again but her conscience is not so strong and the devil on her shoulder tells her this would not be so sinful; she will listen again.

  But this time it is not the party line. There is no chattering, no voices to tune into and the phone rings in her house, the call is for James, of this she is sure.

  ‘Hello,’ Ellie says.

  No one speaks, no ‘get off the line’ even though Ellie can hear breathing.

  ‘Hello?’

  She hears a click and then a burr of the dialling tone. She replaces the phone and it rings again five minutes later. This time Ellie picks it up and waits. She holds her breath because she can feel who this is.

  ‘James, is that you?’ a woman’s voice says.

  Ellie swallows the poison that has risen to her throat and rearranges the words that spring to her tongue.

  ‘No, ’s Ellie. Who is calling, please?’ The intake of breath Ellie hears from the other end of the line sinks to the bottom of Ellie’s heart for she knows her suspicions are correct.

  There is a pause.

  The words, ‘Kindly ask my son to call me when he has a minute,’ rasp across the miles like a whip crack, followed by a hard click. The cold air that travels down the line from Perth causes Ellie to pull her cardigan round herself and she wishes her son would wake soon so that she can hug him tight and feel warm again.

  The light hangs strong in the sky until early evening. James told her at breakfast of his plans to fix the gate when he gets home from Mass.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Ellie had exclaimed. ‘A bigger miracle than the one expected in two days time.’

  James suggests that he also build a sand pit for Nat; he could play there with a bucket and spade when the weather is warmer. Ellie does not understand what this sand pit is, but if his father thinks it will be good, Nat can have it. But not yet: the gate still squeaks on its hinges.

  At the sound of this squeaking gate, Ellie rushes to open the door and meet her husband. He stops on the doorstep as if slapped. He has been in a pleasant mood lately and does not grumble too much about the African food she prepares although the various macaroni dishes are still his favourite. He even eats pepper soup without comment now, but the spices Mrs Watson gives to her do not sit well in her husband’s stomach.

  Her thoughts are heavy when she sees the wary look cross his face. It seems he knows her mood before she does.

  She can see the forest circle them and wishes they could stay in seclusion forever. Never leave and keep James and Nat locked in her care where no one can harm them. Even the crocodile mother knows to seclude her family from danger. These are purple thoughts, romantic thoughts. Rubbish. The telephone has brought the outside world to her and reminds her of the flea that has been hiding in the folds of her skin and has been nipping her since she came to this country. This grandmother: the wicked grandmother. Her thoughts transfer to words without her bidding:

  ‘The wicked grandmother has phoned. She has commanded you to phone her.’

  James’s eyes narrow only a little, but she sees the change. Two spots of colour flood to his cheeks like a drop of blood in a saucer of milk.

  ‘When?’

  Ellie signals to the house with her head. ‘Now.’

  She sees his frown.

  ‘Why didn’t you come and fetch me?’

  Ellie pulls the top of her head to the sky.

  ‘Fetch you from where? I said ‘just now,’ did I not? When do I have the chance?’

  James smiles apologetically. ‘Sorry, it’s just that she hasn’t been well recently.’ He moves past her and kisses the top of her head. ‘Sorry,’ he says again.

  Although she is tempted to follow him and listen, she does not. She steps into her garden and tries not to think about it.

  One small moment passes before she notices the figure walking toward her. Mr Winski.

  She has seen little of him since the day she had witnessed his pain, but she knows he still goes into the woods two or three times a week. Today his head is down and his feet drag fresh shoots from their roots. His black work coat hangs loose over his back as if he has lost weight, and he has a duffle bag draped over one shoulder. His eyes are still tinged with coal dust like he wears women’s makeup.

  The miners return from one shift at around three o’clock. This she knows because she has met a group of men trooping off a bus at that time. She had expected some to shout at her but the white faces with the black-rimmed eyes looked past her as they hauled themselves into the bookmaker’s opposite the post office or into the Miner’s Welfare Club next door to it. Others scattered in different directions but none crossed her path. There is a back shift and a night shift too; often when she is lying in bed at night she will hear the ambulance siren far off in the night and she will remember Mary’s prophesy and wait for James to come home at lunch time to tell her of an accident. Often it is only a bursted finger, sometimes it is more serious.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Winski.’

  Mr Winski lifts his head and adjusts the duffle bag round his back as if he does not want Ellie to see. He stands straight, clips his heels together and bows his head in salute to Ellie.

  ‘Afternoon, miss,’ he says.

  ‘How are you?’

  He seems surprised that Ellie wants to speak to him. She wants to delay his delivery into the woods as long as possible. She does not want to return to her kitchen to hear her husband’s cowardly talk and imagine this man’s real pain.

  ‘No bad, aye, no bad.’ The words are slow and hard to come. This English language does not come easy to him, she can tell. She resists a smile at the small tinge of Scottish accent and hopes this will not happen to her.

  His feet sift from side to side and he moves the duffle bag to the other shoulder. He looks at his watch and then behind him as if he believes he is being followed. Ellie steps off the path and lets him go, hoping his agitation will leave him.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she says.

  He clicks his heels again and passes without having to utter another dreaded English word.

  The Pairty Line

  ‘Goad’s truth, ma shooders ur killin’ me.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Och, ah’ve been huvin’ tae cairry heavy shopping bags back on the bus fae the toon. Ah wish the Co-op wid stert thir hame delivery again, eh?’

  ‘Huv they stopped it like?’

  ‘Aye, did ye no ken? Stopped it last month so they did.’

  ‘Well, of course ma man takes me shoppin’ in his car on a Seterday morning.’

  ‘Lucky you, eh – ma m
an cannae drive and refuses tae learn. Says we’ve nae need fur a car.’

  ‘Why dae you no learn yersel’?’

  ‘Me? No’ me. Ah couldnae.’

  ‘How no? Oor Mig’s jist past her test and said she wid teach me.’

  ‘Naw, ah’m too auld.’

  ‘Yer thirty-nine.’

  ‘That’s whit ah mean – too auld.’

  ‘Ah wonder if the black lassie cun drive.’

  ‘Dinnae be daft, they jist huv camels owre there.’

  ‘But whit aboot thon first black polisman in Ingland I wis reading aboot? Ah bet he cun drive.’

  ‘That’s different, the polis wid huv hud tae teach hum oor wey eh daein’ things.’

  ‘Aye, ah suppose.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  The company at the hoose proves too tempting for Ellie. Each afternoon at two o’clock she straps Nat to her back and visits her friends for a cup of tea. Dod shows her how to plant and care for potato plants but warns her not to plant them before Good Friday. Now Easter is behind them she can spend more time in her own garden.

  When Ellie mentions to Mrs Watson of her plan to visit the toon, Mrs Watson offers to look after Nat.

  ‘It’ll be better the first time you go, jist so you can suss oot the place like.’ The older lady says.

  Ellie is not so sure.

  ‘He has never been without his mother or father,’ she says.

  ‘Well, it’s aboot time he got used tae it.’ Mrs Watson takes him from Ellie and throws him in the air; Nat squeals with delight. ‘There, you see, he’ll be fine. You’ll only be gone a couple of hours, and if ah have a problem ah can always get James tae come and calm him.’

  Ellie knows where the bus stop is because she has passed it many times on her way to the shops. On her early visits to the village, the women standing at the bus stop would stare at her as she passed; now they nod. She has not disappeared back to the jungle as they had wished, and they no longer care. In the afternoons she will often encounter the children from the small school who need to travel home to neighbouring villages. James had explained to her that most of the villages have their own Protestant School but Hollyburn’s Catholic School serves a number of villages in the area. These children, who are supposed to be brought up to love thy neighbour still yell at her and make monkey sounds.

  The bus timetable, hanging behind scratched and ‘fuk the pope’ painted glass, tells her the service into Aucheneden runs every twenty minutes. The bus to Ellie’s home village ran once every five days or so to coincide with the market days.

  Today Ellie is the only person waiting at the bus stop. She checks in her shopping bag for her purse, she checks in her purse for her money. The pound and the ten bob note curl around some change. Some of this is the money Ellie has saved from the housekeeping James hands to her each week. There are normally a few shillings left over which she stores in a jam jar under the sink. Ellie intends to post some of the money to her mother, but today she will spend a few pennies on herself.

  When the bus rounds the corner she steps forward and puts her hand out as James has told her to do. The bus is travelling so fast she expects it to drive past her but then sees the indicator flash and the bus stops with its back door beside her. A lady the size of the chief’s wife, wearing a black uniform, looks down at her from the bus platform. The driver sits in a cab which is separate from the passengers and Ellie does not understand how she will pay for her trip. The lady in the uniform puts her hands on her hips.

  ‘Well, are ye comin’ on or not?’

  Ellie steps on and sits on the first seat she comes to, a long high seat beside the open door. The seat faces across the aisle to another row and she notices the rest of the seats are in pairs and face the driver’s cab.

  ‘But who do I pay?’ Ellie says.

  ‘Ye pay me. Ah’m the bus conductress.’

  The conductress stands in front of Ellie and jingles a brown bag which must contain coins. ‘Where ye off tae, hen?’ she says.

  ‘The toon.’ Suddenly Ellie can’t remember the name of the town everyone calls “The toon’’ and she hopes this lady knows what she is asking.

  ‘One shilling, thruppence,’ she says as she whirls the handle of a silver machine. Out of the machine curls a paper ticket which she tears off and hands to Ellie in exchange for a half crown. She throws the coin in her bag and shakes it, banging it on her huge thigh as she hunts for change. As Ellie is given her change, she notices the woman’s hands are dirty from the coins.

  When the transaction is finished the large conductress heaves herself, one buttock followed by the other buttock, up onto the seat opposite Ellie and smiles at her.

  ‘How you finding Hollyburn, hen?’

  ‘I find it fine.’

  ‘Aye well, they’re a right lot in these villages. Don’t let them get to you.’ The bus stops at the top of the village and two women in matching coats and head scarves step on.

  ‘Hiya, Rose,’ one says to the conductress. They nod towards Ellie then climb the stairs to the top deck. Rose sighs then heaves her bulk up the stairs after them. Ellie watches the village disappear with a strange mix of panic and joy. She wonders how far it will be until they reach the next stop. It isn’t far; they arrive just as Rose returns to her seat. Two women get on and Rose asks for their money and hands out their tickets before they climb the stairs. ‘Saves ma legs,’ she tells them.

  ‘Aye, don’t let them get to you,’ she repeats as she sits back on her seat, signalling upstairs with her eyebrows. ‘They’re all the same in these wee villages.’

  Rose cradles the money bag on her lap and settles herself back in her seat

  ‘Aye, ah remember my brother Bert, when he wis in the army; he wis stationed in Egypt and brought a fine young lass back wi’ him. You should have heard the stooshie they made at home. That wis years ago mind, but ah don’t see much change. It’s a’ one to me what colour yer skin is. Ma mother taught us to respect everything in this world. Mind you, she wis a very unusual wummin for these parts.’

  Ellie does not know how to reply and when Rose picks up her newspaper and starts reading she realises she does not need a reply.

  The bus passes many fields with grazing black and white cattle and waving with grain Ellie guesses might be wheat but she is not sure. Out in the open she is struck again by the many shades of green, the lushness of this country. Very few people board the bus but everyone who does says ‘Hiya, Rose’ to the conductress, and each time she has to go upstairs she sighs her sigh. Ellie is surprised at how much available room there is downstairs. In her country this bus would be bursting with bodies.

  ‘Nae offence like, but see the next time ye come on ma bus, goan sit up the stairs.’

  ‘But it seems like you do not like going up stairs.’

  ‘No, but it’s ’cause you’re doon here that they’re aw goan up there. Like ah say, nae offence, hen, but it would help me oot, eh?’

  Ellie assures her there is no offence taken.

  Houses appear in continuous rows, and there is hardly any gap between larger buildings. The bus stops beside another school and Ellie watches the children hanging and swinging from the school railings, shouting at the bus.

  ‘Where dae ye want to get off, hen?’ Rose asks.

  ‘I am going to buy a record.’

  ‘Are you now? Ah love that Cliff Richards myself. Ah widnae mind cuddling up tae him. You want to go to Russell’s. Get off at the next stop, cross the road and walk up the wee lane; it’s at the other end.’ She points out the window and rings the bell. ‘When ye come back the bus stop is right at the entrance to the lane.’ She points across the road. ‘There. But ye might want a walk roond Woolies first. Ah always have a walk roond Woolies even when ah don’t need anything. Their back door is just across the road fae the record shop, just afore the High Street.’ She ushers Ellie off onto the pavement. ‘Mind noo. Up the stairs on the way hame.’

  Cars are orderly in the toon. A blue
boxy one stops to let her cross, but she is forced to stand in the middle of the road until a bus passes her going in the opposite direction. A horn blasts quite close to where she stands.

  The lane is called Cobbler’s Lane, which she knows to be accurate because she can smell leather and soon stands looking in a shop window filled with odd shoes and tatty handbags. There are also cobbles on the ground, just like the ones in the Dickens books she read at the mission school. She finds this strange in this modern town. The cobbles feel hard and knobbly against her thin soles and she realises that since coming to this country she has rarely walked on their hard streets.

  The music store sits tucked into the corner of the lane, with only a small window looking out onto the street. Ellie opens the door and feels she has walked into the Tardis of Dr Who. There is a counter on one side which leads to a set of steps onto another floor. Along the opposite wall are racks of records. A girl with long hair tied in thick plaits flicks through one compartment as if searching for a name in a stack of index cards. Flick, flick. The girl pulls one out. Its gaudy cover means nothing to Ellie. With a flip of her wrist the girl reads the reverse side before slotting it back in its place and resuming her flick, flick, flick.

  The room smells of the old rags Ellie used for polishing the chapel floor at the clinic. She walks across dusty wooden boards and is reminded of the first flat she shared with James after they were joined in marriage in the eyes of the British colonial administration and in her family tradition.

  She grabs a wobbly handrail as she climbs four steps into the back of the shop and gapes when she sees an arrangement of musical instruments. A drum kit, three guitars, silver and gold trumpets and saxophones. Another set of index trays, this time filled with sheet music stacked for flicking, lie unobtrusively in the corner.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Ellie jumps and checks her mouth does not drop open like a child given a gift.