The Steamie

by Tony Roper

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Dolly had been hard at it for quite a while – long enough for her to feel in need of a break and a chat. This was not a feeling Dolly ever ignored. She never knew what she was going to talk about when the notion took her – she just knew, if she opened her mouth, nature would supply a topic. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she left the stall and crossed into Doreen's. Sure enough, in the few seconds it had taken her to accomplish this, a subject had metamorphosed in her brain and was ready to be put up for discussion. This one was a peach. ‘Did you hear Maureen McCandlish is getting married?’ Dolly threw the statement in front of Doreen.

  Doreen's jaw sagged and her whole body seized to a halt as she turned to face Dolly with an expression of total disbelief. ‘You're kiddin' – Maureen McCandlish? Getting mairried?’ Her voice had risen in such shock that it carried over into Magrit's stall.

  This information made even Magrit stop. She laid down one of Frankie's shirts that had stubbornly been holding on to small barnacles of snot, encrusted under the arms, and joined in the latest news from Pathé News and Gazette's correspondent in Glasgow – Dolly Johnson. ‘Who the hell is she getting mairried to?’ Magrit asked, echoing Doreen's enquiry.

  ‘I think it's some fellah from Springburn. Anyway, that's what I was told,’ she stated, shaking her head in a way that suggested there might be more to this than she had been led to believe.

  ‘Who told you?’ Doreen pressed.

  ‘Isobel McNee in the fish shop,’ Dolly said firmly, naming one of the best sources for gossip in the neighborhood as verification.

  Magrit shook her head in wonderment. ‘Christ – he'll no' have his troubles tae seek, him.’

  There was a brief moment while they all silently agreed with this, then Doreen added, ‘It'll no' be a white weddin', that.’

  Dolly nodded assent to this and then said, ‘Naw! They're a bad lot, them.’

  ‘It's well seen she had to go oot the district to find somebody that didnae know her,’ Doreen opined, folding her arms and leaning against the side of her stall. ‘Has she no' had a wean already?’ She threw this open for discussion.

  Magrit was not one to let the side down by not discussing it and then some. ‘Aye. She was away for a long time aboot two years ago. Supposed to be workin' in England – but she was havin' the wean. You could see it before she went. She was goin' aboot sayin' she'd have to go on a diet and stop eatin' sweeties.’ Magrit made a face that suggested a high degree of scepticism. ‘Must think we came up the Clyde on a biscuit.’

  The others snorted their approval of Magrit's summation, then gasped as she added, ‘She was seen up at Blythswood Square.’

  Blythswood Square, as everyone from Glasgow knew, was a notorious part of the city where the ladies of the night plied their trade.

  This news was so delicious that Dolly and Doreen, in their excitement, spluttered ‘She was not, was she?’ at the same time as their senses thrilled at what they were about to hear.

  Magrit sensed the floor was now hers and pulled a cigarette out from her pack. As she lit it, she informed them, ‘Bella McNaughton saw her.’ Magrit allowed herself a smirk. ‘Of course, you know what Bella's like.’ Her face showed that Bella was a firm favourite in the district and was noted for not being averse to a bit of fun and nonsense.

  Doreen and Dolly were acquainted with Bella. ‘Aye,’ they chorused.

  ‘She's a hell of a woman, Bella,’ Dolly added, her voice laced with affection.

  ‘Bella says she seen her standin' aboot one o' the corners,’ Magrit continued. ‘Of course, Bella watched her for aboot ten minutes – to see what would happen.’

  Doreen's face was aglow with the prospect of new scandal. ‘Did somebody pick her up?’

  Magrit nodded. ‘Bella says this fellah walked up to her and they were talkin' away – you know …’ Her voice was heavy with inference.

  ‘That's terrible,’ Doreen said to Dolly, full of moral indignation.

  Dolly sighed righteously. ‘So it is, hen.’

  Magrit interrupted them, trying to get on with the story, ‘Aye, right enough, but wait till you hear. Apparently he kept shakin' his head. She must have been askin' for too much money.’

  ‘She's nae oil paintin', right enough,’ Dolly reasoned.

  ‘She's got a face like a coo's airse,’ Magrit agreed.

  ‘Whit happened?’ said Doreen, impatient to get to the meat of the story.

  ‘Eventually, this fellah walked away. So the bold Bella saunters up to her and says, “Hello, Maureen, it's a lovely night, isn't it? You oot for a wee walk?”’

  The women gasped in pleasure at Bella's audacity.

  ‘Bella says her face went pure purple. She says to Bella, “I'm just waitin' here for my boyfriend. He's a wee bit late, so he is.” You know thon voice of hers as well. It's like a bull fartin' through a fog horn.’ Magrit's description was cruel but accurate. ‘Anyway, she's dyin' to get Bella oot the way but, of course, Bella does not want to play that game. She keeps talkin' to her. “And what does your boyfriend work at?” “How long have you been going out together?”’

  ‘She's pure evil, Bella, once she gets started,’ Doreen enthused. Magrit nodded her agreement on that score, then continued, ‘By this time Maureen's getting' agitated and she says, “I think I'll just go home. He'll probably turn up at my mother's.” Just at that this wee coolie comes daunerin' up to them – from one o' the boats, you know?’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Dolly blasphemed loudly in astonishment.

  ‘Naw,’ Doreen echoed her astonishment.

  ‘Aye,’ Magrit confirmed. ‘And he says to Maureen, “You come jig-jig on boat?” and Bella said the Maureen wan says indignantly, “I'm afraid I'm not like that.” The wee coolie says to her, “Same price as last night – only, this time, you not be so rough.”’

  ‘Agghhh,’ Dolly cried with delight. ‘What did Bella say?’

  ‘Oh! Bella got aff her mark. But she met her again in the butcher's, aboot a week later, and she says to her, “Aye, Maureen – you still goin' oot wi' that wee guy wi' the baggy troosers?”’

  Doreen glanced at Magrit and Dolly, unconsciously secure in the knowledge she was part of their lives and not the McCandlishes'. ‘She's a bugger, Bella. I'd heard Maureen was hawkin' herself but I didnae know it was true. That's horrible, isn't it? She's filthy dirty as well.’

  ‘They're all mingin,’ Dolly agreed. ‘The sanitary's never away from them.’

  ‘The faither works beside Peter,’ Magrit volunteered. ‘You know what they call him? The carbolic kid. When he dies they'll no' bury him, they'll plant him.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Peter turned round from where he had been giving his face and upper body a wash in the sink. He dried himself off with a damp towel and addressed John who was inhaling on a Player's cigarette.

  ‘We'll go oot and get a right drink noo,’ Peter announced grandly. He was getting back more and more into the party mode as the beer worked its magic on his system.

  ‘I don't want to get blootered before the bells, Peter,’ John said cautiously.

  ‘I know how you feel, John,’ Peter lied. He called over to Tim and Frankie. ‘Away and tell Theresa to make us a cup o' tea.’ He winked at John. ‘We'll have a cup o' tea first – that'll put a lining on our stomachs. That way we'll no' get blootered too quick – and, mind, the night's on me. I owe you big time and Peter McGuire is not a man that only takes – he gives back to those who deserve it and you've been a good pal to me so you definitely deserve it.’

  John was starting to realise that Peter was beginning to talk a lot of crap and that a cup of tea lining his stomach was never going to be an adequate defence for ensuring sobriety.

  Frankie came back in from the lobby. ‘She's no' in, Da,’ he said in his squeaky voice. ‘She left this lying on the bed.’ He placed a note on the table. It was a page ripped out of a school jotter.

  Peter crossed over to it still trying to dry himself on the w
et towel. He picked it up and read aloud as he scanned it. It was in a hastily scribbled form and said:

  I cannae stand it here any longer. I'm away. Tell my ma I'm sorry to leave without seeing her.

  Theresa.

  PS

  I love you all. I just can't stand you.

  Sorry.

  Tim and Frankie sniggered to each other but they stopped this when Peter grabbed them both by the necks and growled, ‘Right, ya wee bastards, see if anything happens to her, I'm gonnae knock the pair o' you good lookin' – so you better hope I find her before your ma gets back.’

  Tim saw before Frankie did that the look in his father's eyes and the firmness of his grip at the back of their necks meant he was not issuing an idle threat.

  ‘Do you want us to help you look for her, Da?’ he asked, trying to avoid further retribution that might be heading his way.

  ‘Naw – one missin' is bad enough. Stay here in case she comes back.’

  Like Tim, John could see that all thoughts of further drinking or any kind of revels had vanished from Peter's demeanour. It was probably the first time that he had ever witnessed Peter genuinely worried about anything.

  ‘She cannae be that far. Come on,’ John said, rising from his chair and pulling on the jacket that he had hung over the back of it.

  The sound of the front door slamming shut signalled to the brothers that they were alone in the house. Frankie sat in silence, lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘She's just wantin' attention,’ was his considered opinion on Theresa's sudden departure.

  Tim deliberated on his brother's pronouncement. ‘So?’ was his considered opinion.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Doreen was still trying to come to terms with the McCandlishes' mode of living. ‘Her brother was at school wi' me. I always felt sorry for him. He'd to sit by himself 'cause he'd beasts in his head. He'd had his head shaved and that blue stuff dabbed a' over it but he was no' a bad-lookin' boy – you know, if he'd been turned oot right?’

  Magrit nodded agreement. ‘You're talkin' aboot Davie McCandlish?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Doreen hastily consented, remembering that there was another male McCandlish – one who was never going to make it as a matinee idol. ‘No' the other one.’

  ‘Naw, naw, no' – the oldest wan – no' Humphrey! You'd think somebody had sat on his face while it was still warm,’ Magrit agreed, a bit harshly perhaps.

  ‘Aye, him and Maureen take after one another,’ Dolly decreed, adding her own ruling to that of her companion's final, if unflattering, judgement.

  Fixing on their eyes with a slow burn that made the blood freeze in their veins, Magrit asked the others, ‘Have you ever been in the hoose?’

  Doreen's eyes responded to Magrit's like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of a car. ‘Naw,’ she croaked.

  Dolly replied with an indignant shake of her head, ‘Not me. I wouldnae go in there.’ For Dolly to leave a sentence that short meant only one thing – she wanted more information, information that could be stored and regurgitated at some future moment in time, and she was willing to pay what was, for her, the high price of not speaking for a wee while to achieve this end.

  Magrit took her cue and then held the pause as expertly as any seasoned actress before continuing with her account. ‘I had to go in to it once. I cannae remember whit for but, dear God, you want to see it. I mean none o' us have got much money,’ she paused dramatically, ‘but there is no excuse for that place. You can always afford a bar o' soap, eh?’

  Dolly gasped with horrified relish. ‘'Zit as bad as that, Magrit?’ she muttered, grimly.

  Magrit nodded somberly, ‘You wipe your feet when you go oot o' that place. Noo I'll say it myself, my hoose is no' palace …’

  ‘Naw,’ Dolly agreed readily, without thinking the full implication of her statement through. Fortunately Magrit did not pick up on it either. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘how any woman that calls herself a woman could let things get intae that state …? They've got a cat – supposed to be a pet but I think it's tae keep the rats to a minimum.’

  ‘Oh, don't,’ Dolly shivered. ‘I'm hell of a feart o' thae things.’ Magrit held up a hand to signal that this was a perfectly valid fear and then carried on, ‘Well, this cat had …’ her eyes rolled in disgust … ‘shit on the floor … and she had just left it lyin' there.’ Her face rankled in distaste. ‘I can not tell you what the smell was like – I was just aboot boakin' my guts up.’

  Doreen's face confirmed that she was in a similar state just listening.

  ‘Then,’ Magrit continued resolutely, ‘then she asked me if I'd like a CUP OF TEA.’

  The other two gagged at the thought and held their hands up to their mouths.

  Magrit cupped her hands over her face to compose herself. ‘Well, if you'd seen the cups … whatever colour they had been originally, I couldn't tell you. My stomach was heavin'. I had tae make an excuse and I left.’

  ‘I've seen that wee cat oot in the street. It's a wee black and white one, isn't it?’ Doreen asked.

  ‘That's right,’ Magrit replied. ‘It's only got the one eye.’

  Doreen deliberated on this before adding, ‘It's a shame. It never gets fed.’

  ‘It must be hoachin' wi' fleas,’ Dolly guessed correctly. They sat in silence and sympathy.

  ‘It's called Lucky,’ said Doreen eventually.

  ‘To think a cat's got nine lives … and it's stuck wi' this one,’ Dolly said, sadly.

  ‘I'll need to get back to this washin' or I'll never finish it thenight,’ Magrit said, practically.

  They turned and, like high priestesses of purification, went into their respective temples to cleanliness.

  THIRTY

  Peter and John emerged from the McGuires' close mouth on to Melton Street and looked around for any sign of Theresa. It was very dark by now and only a pool of phosphorous yellow light from the corner lamp post shed any relief from the gloom. A group of men and one or two boys were huddling under it smoking and laughing and arguing over each other's observations on anything they felt was worth ridiculing or arguing about. It was a form of the Oxford Debating Society – only it was in Glasgow. Mainly they talked about the relative merits of Celtic, Rangers, Partick Thistle and Clyde football clubs. Now and again politics did get mooted but that usually only lasted ten minutes before football took over as the main topic once more.

  There was a chance, however, that they might have seen Theresa. Not wanting to be seen to be panicking, Peter and John walked rather than ran towards the group.

  ‘Any o' you seen oor Theresa?’ Peter said, as casually as he could.

  Big Alec Bailey, known as The Grip because it was thought he was high up in the Masons, nodded. ‘Aye, she passed us by aboot twenty minutes ago. She was headin' towards Argyle Street but I don't know where she went then.’ He studied Peter and noted that John was with him as well – an unlikely combination. ‘Is everything a' right?’

  ‘Aye – nae bother,’ Peter lied expertly. ‘She's just away wi' the hoose keys – that's all. Better try and catch her up. Have a good New Year, eh?’

  John put his thumbs up to signal his good wishes too as they ran towards Argyle Street.

  ‘She'll be OK, Peter,’ he tried to console his fretful friend as they ran.

  ‘Aye,’ Peter said, not consoled at all. ‘If she thinks she was unhappy twenty minutes ago …’ He left the rest of the sentence unfinished.

  Theresa walked hurriedly clutching a small brown stiffened cardboard suitcase. A few blouses some underwear and a pair of shoes were all it would take. Deep in the pocket of her dark blue raincoat a one pound note was wrapped protectively round a ten-shilling note. A half crown, a three-penny bit and five pennies and a halfpenny nestled next to the notes and clunked against her thigh with every fretful step. She had taken the notes from the bit of the carpet that lay under the protection of the carved foot of the wardrobe. It was her mother's plank. Most of the women in her social structure had
a secret plank that contained money hidden from the men in their lives. It was kept for dire emergencies or a bit of extra holiday money. They reasoned that was better than bolstering the publicans' or bookies' profits. Of course their men had a similar arrangement that the women also knew nothing about.

  Theresa's eyes kept filling up with tears and she said over and over again as she walked, ‘I'll pay you back, Ma – I will – honest I will.’

  She was headed for the Broomielaw. This was the dockside district of Glasgow that played host to ships from all over the world, a lively bustling heartbeat of a place on which the wealth of the city had been built.

  Over the years, the River Clyde had grown from a small stream and gradually it had been dredged and widened till it could accept clippers and cargo ships containing tea, coffee, rum and tobacco from far-flung outposts that Theresa had never even heard of. In the daytime tall cranes that resembled praying mantises loaded and unloaded sacks and crates containing livestock and a hundred other commodities that were suddenly available due to the rationing – from the Second World War that had finished not ten years ago – coming to an end.

  Night-time, however, presented a very different scenario. The place took on a forbidding and dangerous mantle. Pools of light from the lamp posts quickly disappeared into shadows that vanished up alleyways and got lost in the dark doorways of shipping offices and derelict wedges of waste ground that were waiting to be rescued and turned into something useful again.

  On the quayside, sat the ships, invariably tinted in the colours of whatever shipping line they belonged to, patiently allowing the water to lap against their hulls. It was on one of these that Theresa hoped to stow away to America and become a stewardess. She did not, in her innocence, know that there were no ships bound for the US in the Broomielaw – mostly they were bound for India or China. The Clan Line ships, painted red and black, were headed for the Punjab while the Blue Funnel Line traversed the China Seas.