The One and Only

by Doris E. Smith

  Rob, after a play of scratching his head, duly agreed to let them go, and Graham’s beaming face stayed with Maggie for the rest of the night. It could not oust completely the conversation with Derek and the worries it had set up, but it did seem to be saying ‘First things first’, and Graham’s pleasure was all of that. He needed to be known for the stuff that was in him behind his bonny face and his old-fashioned ways. Every time they met Maggie found herself liking him more.

  It had been arranged that they should meet at the factory gate, and Maggie was punctual. She had delayed only to rush Kelly out of school clothes into her new kilt and a fight blue jumper. For all that Graham was there first sitting on the stone ring round a Canadian maple. MacAllans’s front lawn had several ornamental trees on it, and very well they looked.

  He spotted the van immediately, uncoiled his legs, picked up his school bag and came forward. He did not run. It was a tiny point, but it seemed to say something. Shyness, perhaps, or responsibility. He was a great many nice things, this eleven-year-old lad, Maggie reflected, but child was not one of them.

  It was never more evident than in the tour that followed.

  ‘We always begin here,’ he said at the showcase of the model ram. ‘As you can see, he’s lifesize, specially made for us. He’s a Cheviot ram. The Cheviots like to eat more grass than the black-faced mountain sheep and their wool is very fine. It’s used for tweeds, cashmeres and all sorts of woollen goods.’

  Maggie was sure he was going to end up with: ‘Now are there any questions?’ She kept her face with some effort.

  ‘His name’s Jacob,’ Kelly observed casually. ‘Your daddy used to think he was alive.’

  The guide’s face went pink. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Kelly,’ Maggie inserted. ‘Please don’t mind her, Graham. Your father was having us on.’

  There seemed an odd contrast. In the respective ways of the man and the boy. That had been one of the times when Angus had seemed young. He had harked back, she remembered, to the ferry boat and his years at college, and he had said ruefully that Graham was ‘much cannier’. It was quite absurd how tender the memory made her feel.

  ‘Och well, you wouldn’t need to mind what my father says,’ Graham said grandly. ‘I’m always kidding him on.’

  For all that his cheeks were pink as the commissionaire came forward to admit them. ‘Hallo, Mr. Gunn,’ he said shyly. ‘These are some friends of mine. My father says it’s all right to show them round.’

  The staircase to the right bore a sign MANAGING DIRECTOR AND BOARD ROOM. Graham turned to the left.

  ‘I’m taking you to the scouring rooms. That’s where the yam gets washed. We buy it spun and twisted and we dye it ourselves. We have some lovely new dyes this year, we haven’t even shown them to the trade yet. I’ll see if I can get Mr. McKay to show you. It is confidential, but I’m sure that won’t matter with you.’

  Maggie said: ‘No,’ sharply, but he was not to be deterred. ‘I want you to see everything. It’s interesting, really it is,’ he told her earnestly. ‘I’m coming to work here myself next summer. I’m looking forward to it.’

  Doing what, Maggie asked, and wasn’t he a bit young?

  ‘I’ll be nearly thirteen,’ he took unblushingly a two-year stride. ‘And I don’t really mind what they give me to do. Dad started working for my grandfather when he was twelve, in the holidays, of course.’

  In those days Maggie figured the factory would not have had its new open plan wings, airy, glass-walled and gay with the issue overalls which were turquoise blue. She noted for reference, if required, that besides looking attractive it was neat, well-swept, uncongested and had its fire points marked.

  Plotting the journey of a scoured hank through the huge vats in the dyeing department to the spin dryers and hot air chambers and on to the knitting machines was fascinating, even without Graham’s careful commentary. The promised introduction to Bill McKay, Works Manager, was effected, but to Maggie’s relief no mention was made of the latest dyes.

  ‘Well, I can see you don’t need me along,’ Bill McKay joked, his eyes on the serious face of his future boss. ‘But I’ll maybe see you on the way out.’

  The machine room was impressive, but Maggie was happier with the next stage, making up and finishing. In this department pieces were blocked, pressed and joined, zips were inserted, button and buttonhole bands were attached and reinforced with grosgrain ribbon, buttons were sewn on and sometimes knitted or crocheted button covers were made by hand. Right down the line MacAllan standards were rigorously upheld, the skirt linings in knitted dresses matched perfectly, the edges of patch pockets were neatened by hand crochet, spare buttons were put with each cardigan and jacket.

  In the packaging department the finished goods were folded and slipped into the familiar gold-stamped polythene bags. ‘Here’s where they apply for their passports,’ the chargehand joked.

  ‘How many will you swop me if I surrender mine?’ Maggie asked lightheartedly.

  Talk about the end of the rainbow! Her eyes were drunk on colour—summer golds and berry reds in the cashmere tradition; Shetland marls of sea green and oatmeal; hazy blues, heathers and amethyst among the lambswool. And all the styles! The classics—round necks, turtle necks and polo necks—were the best sellers and the founder members, but they had several new associates—a shawl collar with a tie, a tabbed collar with a button, a neat shirt collar and a sporty Vee neck with contrasting inset.

  Heaped up on the packing tables the jumble of colour was like a kaleidoscope, but Bill McKay, rejoining them, explained the different sequences. The ‘paintbox’ shades were clear, bright and young, the ‘jewel’ range was richer, the ‘muted’, the ‘dark’ and the ‘pastel’ explained themselves. ‘And you might think we’d covered the lot, but we have a whole new set coming out for next year. “New Dense”, we’re calling it for the moment, and it’s really lovely. I’m sorry,’ he added, mistaking Maggie’s interest. ‘I’d like to show it to you, but just now it’s still very secret.

  ‘These are new too.’ He picked up a striped sweater and waistcoat set. ‘These aren’t in the shops yet. What do you think of them?’

  The sweater was long-sleeved, striped in white, lilac and french navy, the plain waistcoat was white. There were other combinations, cream, blood orange and bitter chocolate, and nut brown, white and quince. The quince, Bill McKay confided, was a ‘New Dense’ colour. ‘So you’re having a preview after all.’

  Maggie tried not to feel guilty. Almost certainly Bonnie Tweeds would already have been shown the new range, she need not see herself carrying a secret, even if only a fraction of one. Otherwise, to be caught like this in the crossfire of two loyalties would be intolerable.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mr. McKay,’ she said warmly. ‘We must go now. We’ve taken up more than enough of your time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Graham supported unexpectedly. ‘Dad will think we’re lost.’ They were going upstairs, he added, to his father’s office for tea.

  ‘Oh no, Graham, I think not,’ Maggie began. ‘You said he was very busy.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, really,’ Graham assured her. ‘He said so. Anyway, here he is.’

  Angus MacAllan, last seen two weeks ago striding off thick-backed after his ultimatum on Cream Cracker, was indeed walking towards them.

  ‘My tea’s just come in,’ he said in homely fashion. ‘So I thought I’d come and fetch you. Well, how has it gone?’

  ‘All right, thanks,’ Graham answered with a shy smile at Maggie.

  It had been wonderful, she stressed, not missing the anxiety on the older face. They had had a great tour and a most able guide. As for the product, she was green with envy. But now, firmness laced her tone, she and Kelly must be on their way, with thanks for everything.

  ‘Nonsense. The tour’s not finished,’ Angus said with even more firmness. ‘You may not know it, but we have all our visitors searched, upsta
irs in my room where I can supervise.’ He put a hand on her arm and marched her up the handsome stone staircase with its wrought iron railing. ‘I hope you really enjoyed it. I’d have taken you round myself, but he was so keen and I wanted to give him the chance. You’ve made quite a conquest, you know.’

  ‘I can hardly believe that,’ Maggie deprecated.

  ‘It’s a fact. He gives out to very few. Eighty-five per cent of the time he bottles up like me.’

  And that be hanged for a tale, Maggie thought. He had

  Troy like a terrified moth, he had taken MacAllans into the top merger class and his dinner party had gone like a bomb. If any one scored in the power game Angus MacAllan did.

  His suite in the old centre block had been given air-conditioning and wide picture windows. The carpet looked like small bits of coloured glass and the mammoth sofa had blown up head and knee rests.

  ‘Is there a charge for breathing here?’ Maggie enquired irrepressibly.

  ‘Possibly. I never have time to breathe, so I haven’t tried it out yet,’ their host returned, straight-faced. ‘No,’ he added, ‘they did it up for me just recently. It’s a bit of window dressing really, but I get the benefit. Now then, what have we got?’ His eye went boyishly to the tray of tea things. ‘Oh, good. She remembered the chocolate biscuits. I ordered some.’

  It could hardly have been fortuitous that the visit was uninterrupted either by telephone or callers, but when Maggie, conscious of this, attempted to hustle Kelly along she was immediately taken to task. ‘Where’s the rush this time? I think you must charge about in your sleep. That’s if you ever do sleep. I can’t imagine it.’

  ‘If you must know, I was thinking of how busy you must be.’

  ‘Then don’t. I’m not thinking of it,’ he returned, and nodded as Graham asked if he could take Kelly to buy sweets in the canteen.

  ‘I’ve no money.’ Kelly sent Maggie an expectant look.

  ‘You won’t need any,’ Graham assured her. ‘I’ll pick up the bills.’

  ‘Don’t laugh. She’s very good for him,’ Angus observed as the children went off together. ‘She’s just young enough to make him feel protective, and he likes that. He enjoys protecting people. Sometimes,’ he looked sheepish, ‘he even protects me. And then she’s an extrovert, which he isn’t’

  ‘Kelly?’ Maggie gasped. ‘An extrovert? Never!’

  ‘I find her so. Onlookers see most of the game.’

  ‘If she is it’s only since coming here.’

  ‘Perhaps so.’

  The words stayed warmingly and the more she thought about them the less absurd they seemed.

  ‘Here’s something might interest you.’ He rose and walked over to a glass showcase on the wall. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come to it. It’s four hundred years old or thereabouts and won’t take handling.’ What looked like a piece of Fair Isle knitting in drab shades of brown and cream was displayed side by side with a beautiful modern sample rich in pinks and plums. ‘I expect in Packing Department they made the wee joke about passports,’ Angus said. ‘Here’s a bit that came in with an illegal immigrant.’

  The antique piece, he explained, was credited with having been worn by a Spanish sailor on the Armada whose ship was wrecked off Fair Isle. The patterns, since copied by the islanders, had originated in Spain and this accounted for the Catholic influence in the symbols used. He distinguished in the pieces before them the crown of glory, the Sacred Heart and the star of Bethlehem.

  Maggie had learned something. She had always thought Fair Isle knitting as Scottish as tartan. No less interesting was the fact that the colours in the ‘Armada’ relic were the natural shades of the fleece. Vegetable dyes and the chemical explosion of colour as MacAllans knew it today came later.

  ‘But I’ll come back to that in a moment,’ Angus promised. ‘There’s something I think you’ll also like to see.’ Maggie felt her smile stiffen.

  Improbable perhaps that he was thinking of the New Dense range, but in these circumstances interest was dangerous. She could not afford to see the new colours. She could not bear to be Derek’s love and at the same time Angus’s confidante. It would mean that whether she spoke or kept silent she would let down one or the other.

  Angus showed her the other two pieces in the case. They were both Aran knitting, the Irish answer to Fair Isle.

  ‘Irish? What’s it doing here?’ Maggie demanded.

  ‘Making me quite a nice little profit.’ He explained unblushingly that several of the home knitters, who were on piece work, and made up the factory’s ‘handknits’ force, knew Aran styles. ‘Why not?’ he challenged. ‘If the Irish can lay claim not only to the pipes but the kilt—I ask you!’ His eyebrows looked fearsome. ‘They can’t object to our returning the compliment I ‘

  The creamy wool, only half scoured, retained much of the natural oil as protection against the Atlantic gales. The patterns had romantic meanings, the zigzag ‘mountain paths’ represented a married couple’s rugged road through life, the cables stood for the fishermen’s ropes, the diamond for wealth and the spiky branched ‘tree of life’ expressed the fisherman’s wish for many sons to follow him to sea.

  ‘That’s something you don’t need,’ Maggie said carelessly.

  The eyebrows raised.

  ‘Graham’s been telling me he’s starting work next summer.’

  ‘So he says.’ Suddenly the face looked sly. ‘He’s just one, though. I could manage another few like him if the buyer was right.’

  To Maggie’s deep chagrin her cheeks began to bum. Embarrassment was the last impression she wished to give, and it did not help to see that the green eyes were twinkling.

  ‘Another time, another place,’ Angus murmured. He unlocked a drawer in his desk. ‘Meanwhile look at these and tell me what you think.’

  Safer as it might have been to shut one’s eyes, not a woman in a hundred could do it. The card was double folded, someone had written ‘New Dense’ on the outside; she looked at it dumbly.

  ‘Take it, look inside,’ Angus invited. ‘I think the boffins have really come up with something.’

  Maggie opened the card and saw first and foremost a blue that made her cry out. It was a cross between china and sapphire. To sink her eyes in it was almost therapeutic. ‘The blue—’ she began. ‘The blue is gorgeous.’

  Other shades were with it, seven in all, adhering in neat strips to the backing card. There was a violet, deep but very soft, a peacock vibrant as the bird it came from, the quince she had seen already, a velvety moss green, a rich spice brown, an indigo bottomless as the night sky and a pinky mauve that really made you think of the tight-packed slopes round Deeside, not surprising this since its shade name was to be ‘Heart O’ Heather’. But the blue stood out, drawing her eyes, making her think of delphiniums, cornflowers and Delft pottery. Herself she would call it ‘Heroic Blue’ because you could step out in it and feel a different woman.

  ‘They’re wonderful, all of them,’ she said at last. ‘And “Dense” is just right.’

  ‘Good. That’s the first outside opinion I’ve had. Nobody’s seen them yet except you, outside of the factory, of course.’

  ‘And Bonnie Tweeds, I presume?’ Her mouth had dried. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Not even Bonnie Tweeds. We’ll be talking again soon, but I have to keep some things up my sleeve till I know. Well, which do you like best? Have you made up your mind yet?’

  ‘No problem. The blue. It’s fantastic!’

  ‘Good. That’s what I hoped.’ He stooped again, to the last deep drawer in his desk. ‘Here you are, then. Compliments of the management’

  The polythene bag had the gold crest and turquoise lettering of MacAllans of Aberdeen, but through it the colour was blue, deep and dense, like dark bluebells. She peeled the sticky tape and there it was—one MacAllan sweater, size thirty-six, crew-necked and chunky, knitted in an intriguing broken cable. And the colour. You could drown in it. For a few speechless seconds she did.
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br />   When she looked up the green eyes were studying her face. ‘Right size?’ she was asked.

  ‘Yes, but I—I can’t accept this. There’s no reason.’

  ‘Except that I want you to,’ he said simply. ‘I want you to meet my publicity manager some time too. He’s got some very interesting notions for naming that colour.’

  ‘Don’t mind the publicity manager. Let me thank you. Please, Angus. It’s beautiful.’ She held it against her chest.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, looking back steadily, ‘you’re right there. Exquisite.’

  Maggie, staring at him, saw that he had coloured and felt a telltale singe in her own cheeks.

  It could happen, she thought; that power Troy could not withstand was infectious. She stood motionless watching the lips and the deep eyes. It might not be a gentle kiss, but its panache would be undoubted—and unforgettable. And so long as you didn’t believe in it no harm would he done.

  There was, however, to be no opportunity, for at that moment Graham and Kelly came back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Graham’s lesson next morning was down for ten o’clock and Maggie looking out from the office to see if he had arrived was surprised to see not Graham but Angus in conversation with Rob. He was dressed casually in jeans and a thick polo necked sweater striped in dark and light grey.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘I’m having the hour today.’ Graham had a dental appointment, made so long ago that he had forgotten about it till the dentist’s secretary had rung to change the time. ‘So he’s away to town very disappointed and I’m here to take advantage.’