by Webster, Jan
But Sandia handed the palm to the Willow. The lights, she thought, were exquisite. The waitresses wore white dresses, chokers of white or pink pearls and even if some of them looked like glossy bolsters, the whole atmosphere breathed luxury, gentility, taste. She looked not without a faint wistfulness at Dandy and said, ‘It’s funny. Coming here has helped me to make up my mind.’
Heedless of the interested matrons seated at the tables nearby, he took her gloved hands between his and said tenderly, ‘About what, my love?’
‘About us marrying quickly. I think we should. I have got the tea-room business out of my system.’ She gave a quick, half-rueful smile. ‘I think.’
‘I’ll make you forget all about it,’ he promised. He had grown very solid and handsome with the years, his complexion ruddy and fresh, his greying hair crisp and distinguished. He had made a comfortable small fortune in Belfast and was prepared now to hand the business there over to his younger brother, while he would set up a subsidiary firm in Glasgow.
This was what he had come to Glasgow to tell her, those months ago when she had returned from her trip to Canada. He had not come tentatively, but with the plans of a man who has given the matter a great deal of thought
He still carried that letter she had sent him, asking to see him again. It was in his wallet, its edges torn and tattered from all the times it had been abstracted and looked at. He had not answered because his wife, Phidelma, had been dying. But afterwards, he had seen the only way to any kind of happiness was to return to Glasgow. To offer to stay there, in the city Sandia loved, if she would marry him.
She knew Dandy’s determination that they should marry was something she could never resist. Did not want to resist. But there had been details. Such as her tea-rooms. And now, sitting in the Room de luxe, she knew this was a part of her life she could afford to let go. She wanted time with Dandy and they had wasted too much of it already.
‘I’ll give up the management of the tea-rooms,’ she said, with finality. ‘You’ll have to look after the financial side for me, Dandy. My job is going to be staying at home and looking after you.’
‘Your job is to go on looking as beautiful as you do today.’ Dandy’s tribute was no empty one. In her thirties, Sandia had looked handsome, middle-aged and verging on the dowdy. Now in a flowing pale grey dress, a wide-brimmed hat lavishly trimmed with lace flowers, her parasol resting on the chair beside her, she looked like an Edwardian rose that had suddenly opened its petals to the sun. He felt desire for her swamp him almost to the point of disorientation.
She smiled at him. ‘Hadn’t we better get down to Wylie and Lochhead’s? We’ve got to choose some furniture if we’re taking that house in Pollokshaws.’
He escorted her back down the winding staircase and into the street, clumsy in his adoration.
‘I wish we were marrying this very afternoon,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I can’t wait much longer!’
She laughed at him from under the big brim of her flowery hat, suddenly remembering the boy who’d brought violets to her in the West End Park and the sweet summer kisses behind the rhododendron bushes. It seemed impossible so much lay between then and now. She gripped his hand hard, like pinching herself to make sure it was all true.
*
By the time Sandia and Dandy had inspected most of the stock of Wylie and Lochhead’s large emporium, and decided on a number of items they wanted, they had also somehow reached agreement on the wedding date: five weeks forward, if all the arrangements could be made in time. It would be a quiet wedding, after all, but Sandia wanted it to be as perfect in its way as she could organize. A ninon dress in café-au-lait, a Paris hat with pale pink silk roses, a wedding breakfast in the first tea-room, the one dearest to her heart … all these had to be arranged.
They decided they would ask Alisdair to be best man, and thought there was no time like the present for dropping in on Tina and Alisdair to acquaint them of their plans.
‘Imposing,’ said Dandy. It was his first visit to Alisdair’s house and consulting rooms in the West End. Sandia pulled the bell again, remembering it was probably the parlour maid’s afternoon off and that Tina’s old cook, in the basement, could not manage the stairs. If there was no reply, it must mean Tina was out. Sandia made a little moue of disappointment at Dandy.
But the door opened abruptly, and Tina stood there looking at them, almost as though she had never seen them before. The greeting died on Sandia’s lips as she saw her sister-in-law had been weeping. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were puffy. What was more, a large red area stood out like an angry birthmark on one cheek.
Sandia stepped quickly into the hall, dragging Dandy behind her and closing the door discreetly. She rather than Tina led the way to the sitting-room, where Sandia put her arms round the girl and sat her down on the sofa. A snuffly Pekingese peered curiously up at the trio from a hearthrug at the dying fire.
‘Where’s Alisdair?’ demanded Sandia. It was outside his consulting hours and she suddenly had the feeling he was in the house somewhere.
‘Upstairs,’ said Tina.
‘Have you two been having words?’
Tina seemed to pull herself together, with an effort. She tucked her hair up off her neck, wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and tried to smile at Dandy.
‘What makes you think that? I — I knocked my — my cheek on the corner of a cupboard in the kitchen. It brought tears to my eyes. Sorry! It’s lovely to see you. Can I offer you some tea?’
‘Tell them!’ The harsh command came from the doorway. Alisdair stood there, in shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, his fists balled and his expression alarming in its intensity. He came forward, not taking his eyes from his wife, and shouted, ‘Tell them! Tell them about this mockery we call a marriage! Tell them who struck you —’
‘I won’t tell them!’ cried Tina. ‘If anything’s to be told, it must come from you.’
He looked down at her as though he despised her, as though, in fact, he was going to strike her once more. Dandy rose in alarm and restrained him, saying, ‘Calm down, man. This is none of our business. Do you want us to go?’
Suddenly the fight had all gone out of Alisdair and he collapsed into a chair, weeping.
Sandia said, appalled and helpless, ‘What is this terrible thing all about?’ Alisdair threw up his arms and began to protest, ‘Beat me! Whip me! Cur that I am. I struck a woman. I struck my wife —’
Sandia said, ‘Dandy will get you some brandy. Pull yourself together.’ She tugged Alisdair’s head back gently by the forelock, looking down at him compassionately. ‘I’ll take Tina up to her bedroom, till you’ve got a grip on yourself. Unburden yourself to Dandy. He’s a man of the world. He will understand.’
Upstairs, she tried desperately to get Tina to tell her what was the matter. The girl’s mouth set mutinously. ‘It is nothing I can talk about.’
‘Are you not suited to each other, as lovers?’ probed Sandia gently. ‘Is that what it is?’
‘I did love him!’ Tina burst out passionately. ‘I couldn’t show it at first. I was brought up to think — that sort of thing was — well, disgusting.’
‘Oh, not between husband and wife!’ Sandia sighed, discomfited.
‘He doesn’t want me! That’s the root of it. If he had come to me, been patient with me, it could have been all right. But we live like strangers. I would leave him, but he would never survive the disgrace. It would affect his practice. And he’s a kirk elder —’
‘They can be the biggest sinners of the lot.’
‘“Thou shalt not be found out,”’ quoted Tina bitterly. ‘He reads the lesson on Sunday: “The greatest of these is charity,” but it’s hypocrisy that keeps him going. Keeps both of us going.’ She dissolved into broken, heart-rending weeping. Sandia let her cry for a little, then said in a brisk, sharp voice, ‘Come on, now, Tina. This will get you nowhere. Wash your face, tidy your hair, and we’ll go back downstairs again.’
The girl
did as she was bid. Sandia saw that she was desperately thin and highly-strung, nervous in her movements, and her heart moved with a strange sorrow, knowing she was looking on suffering that was genuine and possibly incurable.
When she had finished her toilette, Tina gave her a shaky smile and they went back downstairs. Alisdair had put on his jacket and rose as they entered, his face pale and expressionless.
‘If you are both so unhappy, perhaps the best thing to do is part.’
It was Dandy who spoke. The three others looked at him, but said nothing at first. Then Alisdair, looking tentatively at his wife, said in a low voice, ‘Is that what you want? Do you want to go back to your father?’
She shook her head.
‘That old man.’ There was a volume of bitterness in Tina’s voice. ‘He has love for nothing but his money.’
‘You have no other relatives you’d like to live with? Aunts? Cousins?’
Bright-eyed, Tina answered, ‘None.’
‘You are welcome to remain here.’ Alisdair spoke to her directly. ‘What happened today will not happen again. You have my word on that.’
‘I believe you.’ She gazed back at him quiveringly, but dry-eyed.
‘Shall we try again? I shall respect your privacy.’ He turned to the others, changing once again before their eyes into the weighty, ponderous young doctor. ‘She runs my household well, you know. I owe her a debt of gratitude for that.’
‘You owe me nothing.’ Tina rose wearily. ‘Sandia and Dandy are here to testify to my words: I’ll not desert you, husband. Not yet. I have nowhere else to go.’
When they were back in the street later, Sandia said to Dandy, ‘We forgot to ask Alisdair. To be best man.’
‘In the circumstances, maybe it had better be Finn,’ suggested Dandy.
Sandia nodded. They had chosen Alisdair in the first place because Kitty’s time for her first confinement was near. Now they would have to persuade Finn to come to the wedding without her, as she refused to be seen out-of-doors in her advanced state of pregnancy.
‘Just so long as he doesn’t try to persuade us to buy his new model car,’ said Sandia.
‘Maybe we should have one?’
‘What? At fifty miles an hour? You won’t get me risking my neck as Kitty does. She actually drives one of these machines, you know.’
After this brief exchange, they lapsed into silence. They were both stunned by the misery of the atmosphere they had just left. The way Tina had said ‘Husband’ when she promised Alisdair she would not leave him had struck an icy chord in Sandia’s mind. She was about to say, ‘Alisdair was very close to Mother,’ but did not see what that had to do with the present impasse, or why she should think it now. Except that Clemmie’s emotional chains had been cast-iron and that Alisdair had been the youngest, the most cherished, the one of whom so much had been expected in terms of loving response.
The thoughts were too inchoate for her to express them to Dandy. Instead, she looked at him wordlessly and saw her own bewilderment reflected in his face. They floundered in a morass of pity and perplexity.
Part Four
Chapter Fourteen
Finn Fleming drove his car into the yard behind the factory, parked in lonely isolation and began the walk towards his office with the air of a man with something on his mind.
Kitty had told him that morning she was pregnant again. She had been a little tearful. With the younger of their two infant daughters, Main, still not ‘shortened’ from the long gowns into the little frocks that indicated the toddler stage, it was no wonder. He felt a cad and yet another part of him looked forward to the joyful possibility of a son.
These had been productive years for the sisters. Sandia, to Dandy Peel’s unabated delight, had produced a ‘late bloom’, a daughter named Catriona. But it was clear Kitty would have welcomed a rest before trying for the son she and Finn both wanted. And, Finn thought grimly, he could have done without the morning sickness and the evening frailty of a reproachful spouse, when the factory seemed set for yet another period of financial crisis and technical upset.
‘Mornin’, sur,’ said the old man sweeping the yard, touching his cap respectfully.
‘Morning, Willie,’ Finn responded. For a moment, he envied the other the simple satisfaction of his job. But then the works caught up with him again. There was a smell, a sound and a purpose that entered into him each morning so that he knew all over again no way of life could have any meaning for him but this one. He was prepared to give it everything, every last ounce of inspiration, dedication, energy, guile. It was his in a way not even Kitty was his. He had built it up from that crazy, erratic first ‘Fleming Flyer’ into one of the few concerns to survive in the West of Scotland after the initial, lunatic burst of enthusiasm for the new mode of transport had waned.
His partner, Peter Frensham, had been one of those determined to bring the car-manufacturing industry to Scotland, but he and Finn had clashed over the vexed question of whether they should buy component parts from specialist manufacturers, or make their own. ‘We are car makers,’ Finn had argued, ‘not assemblers.’ But when they had changed from making bi-bloc engines to mono-bloc, the plant installation had been heavily expensive and, angry over the massive retooling, Frensham was now sulking over the gambling tables in the South of France, leaving Finn to get on with it.
It was difficult, trying to keep up in technical sophistication while preparing to meet the demand for more cars that would surely come when the roads of Scotland were at last improved; difficult to produce the sort of solid, hard-working, dependable car that would appeal to the solid, hard-working, middle-class buyer, while providing the refinements that one’s amour-propre as designer demanded.
But hardest of all was coping with the labour problems that had suddenly intensified over the last year. It would have been optimistic to think he would escape them altogether, when industrial unrest was sweeping the country in a sprawling, untidy wave that crept and eddied into small and unexpected quarters.
But his original workers had been enthusiasts like himself, not unmindful of the rate for the job but prepared to waive the importance of a rise when times were tough. Not so the recent influx of workers needed to operate the new plant. And the final irony was that it was his cousin Donald who was organizing them in their demands and he had given Donald the job and therefore the power.
Donald was waiting for him now in his office, as he had requested last night before going home. Accurately, Finn tossed his Fedora on to the hat-rack and turned to meet Donald’s saturnine gaze.
‘You wanted me?’ Donald’s tone was deliberately laconic.
‘Is it all right for you to be here, without your committee, then?’ Finn decided to try some broad Glasgow satire.
‘It’s all right.’ Donald acknowledged the broadside with a faint grin and nod.
‘I didn’t think you could go to the bathroom without them.’ Finn’s tone had hardened.
‘Look here —’
‘No, you look here. I’m fed up with all the circumlocutions and hedging of the real issue. I’m fed up with being shouted down by shop-floor bullies —’
‘You’d better get used to it.’ Donald’s retort was abrasive. ‘These men out there are your partners and you can’t go on making cars without them. Come down off your high horse and listen to them.’
‘I know what they’re saying.’ Finn’s voice dropped and softened. ‘They want more money and I can’t do it, Donald. Not now. I’m over-extended as it is. I went into hock to get that plant, but if I hadn’t the factory would have faded away. There would have been no future, no future at all for these men out there.’
‘I don’t believe Frensham can’t raise more capital,’ said Donald. His brows were down and he was glaring truculently at Finn. ‘Leo Chiozza Money says that half the national income goes to one-nine of the population, and Frensham and his family are part of that one-ninth.’
‘I’ve read Riches and Poverty, too,’ sa
id Finn drily. ‘I’m not half as impressed by it as you seem to be.’
‘Why have we seen so little of Frensham recently?’ Donald ignored the gibe about Money’s book and went straight to the heart of the question.
‘I can’t tell you that.’ Finn had considered taking Donald into his confidence over Frensham’s present ambivalent attitude, but had decided it would serve no purpose. ‘But I got you here, on your own, so that I can put the rest of my cards on the table. If you insist on a wage increase, I shall have to lay men off. Part of the new plant will be inoperable. I shall have to go back to buying certain components from abroad. And how long we could keep going on such a basis, I don’t know. Possibly six months.’
‘How am I to put this to men whose wages can’t keep up with the cost of living?’ demanded Donald. ‘What cost a pound in 1900 costs twenty-five shillings now.’
‘Can’t you try?’ Finn was conscious of pleading.
Donald laughed, an expostulatory sound that had no mirth in it. ‘Can’t you see that with all this talk of syndicalism, they’ve glimpsed a workers’ paradise? It started with the industrial workers in New York, after all. Your country.’
‘Are you telling me that if they strike, it’s not just the money that’s behind it?’
‘Certainly. The harder nuts want nothing less than the takeover of the factory. After they’ve softened you up with strike after strike.’
Finn gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Some of them can barely write their names! They couldn’t run a go-cart, never mind a factory. Come on, Donald. Let’s stop talking fairy-tales and get down to brass tacks.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Donald’s eyes refused to meet his cousin’s. ‘I don’t think anything I can say now will avert a strike.’