Margaret slipped back through to the other room where she lay down quietly on the marital bed by her sister, placing her arm gently on her shoulder reassuringly and falling into a light sleep.
*
The doctor, true to his word, called every day for the next ten days, ensuring his patient was making some progress, checking with Maggie on her diet and taking a look at tiny Janet too. He was not too sure she was entirely thriving as she should and warned Maggie to let him know if she noticed her not feeding well. Isa’s pulse was weak the first few days but then began to pick up. She was able to eat the carefully prepared food her sister brought to her and felt some strength returning. But her hair, which had lost its rich hues, was impossible. Try as they might they could not get the tangles out of it. Isa was too exhausted to be bothered with combing it and one morning she asked Maggie to bring the scissors and a bath towel.
“Isa are you sure you want me to do this?” Maggie looked at her hesitantly.
“It’s got to be done, Maggie. I can’t get it sorted or washed like this.” She paused. “It will grow again anyway. Come on, let’s get it over with.”
Maggie took the scissors in one hand and a clump of her sister’s hair in the other and began the long process. As the matted clumps of hair fell, dull and brown, on the bed around her, Isa felt the weight going. She was shedding a part of herself. What was she losing? A major part of her appearance was her hair – its length, its volume, its colour. It was always the thing most commented on by Peter. He loved brushing it for her and watching her pin it up. She remembered her mother brushing it by the fire when she was little. Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. This was hard.
When it was finished, Margaret helped her wash the short crop and towel it dry. Isa finally faced herself in the mirror. She could not believe what she saw there. Who was this woman? Oval faced, translucent complexion telling of exhaustion, staring pale-blue eyes flashing like ice in sunlight and spiky brown hair. She looked shocked. The youthful Isa was gone. Staring back at her was a more mature woman: a mother of two children, someone who had been through troubles, each of which had left its marks on her – wrinkles round the eyes and mouth, furrowed lines in her brow, and now this brown, lifeless, short hair.
“Well, Maggie. It’s done. Thank you.” Isa swallowed hard. There was a long pause.
“I don’t think I should go in for hairdressing though, do you?” Margaret smiled tentatively and Isa, tears in her eyes, laughed and fell into an embrace with her.
When Peter returned, Margaret saw him first as Isa was sleeping. She told him what they had had to do.
“She was really upset about it, Peter, but we could not get the tangles out any other way. It will grow back.”
Peter was crestfallen when he saw his beautiful wife shorn and still pale and weak, yet he put on a brave face and tried not to mind. He was still reeling from the disappointment at not having his longed-for son.
He and Isa hardly spoke or spent much time together, since Maggie was there as mediator to cook, clean and mind Margaret, and Isa was still confined to bed. Only perfunctory remarks passed between them, such as Peter giving information regarding his shifts and Isa telling him of purchases to make on the way home. All such communication was clipped and brief, as though being given to a servant or employee. It made Maggie very sad for them.
When Chrissie called in to visit after school one day, she brought exciting news.
“Father asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I asked if we could have a dog. And he said yes! I can’t believe it. I thought he would laugh. But he’s going to pay the licence.”
“That’s wonderful, Chrissie,” said Maggie, delighted for her. “You’ve always wanted a dog. What kind will you get?”
“We’ll pick one from the home in Stirling this weekend. I don’t mind. Maybe a Labrador or a collie. Something that will be good with the children too, so I can bring him round to visit here. That will be all right, won’t it?”
Isa was tired and not showing over much interest but she realised this would be good for Chrissie, since Maggie had well and truly left home now and Chrissie was on her own with her father. “Of course it will. I’m so glad, Chrissie. You’ll love that.”
John took his youngest girl to the dog home that weekend. Together they walked round the cages, looking at the various animals. Some were terrified and cowered at the back of the kennels. Others were up at the fencing barking and growling with voices made hoarse through constant use in their nervousness. But one beautiful black Labrador caught Chrissie’s eye. He stood proud with his tail wagging looking eagerly into every face as if to say, “Take me”.
Chrissie looked into the dog’s eyes and said to her father, “Let’s take this one.” He too had noticed the animal’s calm bearing.
“Let’s ask to have a look at him and find out a bit about him,” he said sensibly.
They discovered the dog had not long come in to the kennels because his owner had suddenly taken ill and was in hospital, with little hope of recovering to the level of being able to care for him again. He had been well cared for. Chrissie was thrilled when her father said to the kennel maid that they would take him. He was brought round to meet them. In no time at all he was licking Chrissie’s hand and wagging his tail. She clapped his silky head and rubbed under his chin and behind his ears, instinctively knowing what he liked. She was proud as Punch walking home with him on the end of a piece of washing rope, which would have to do until she got a lead.
Chrissie had known as soon as she saw the way the dog held himself amidst all the confusion and yapping of the other dogs that his previous owner had understood the dog’s nature perfectly when he had called him Noble.
“He is a handsome dog and that’s a fact. Ye were lucky there, ma lass. Definitely the best of the bunch. Now what do ye say to a walk in the park to show him off?”
“That would be grand. This is the best Christmas present ever. Thank you, Father.” Chrissie was beaming. John was all aglow from seeing her so happy. What a difference a dog will make to our lives, he thought. It will be grand, right enough.
Over the next weeks, Chrissie developed a new routine of rising earlier to put on the breakfast porridge to simmer while she took Noble out for his first walk of the day. Even when it was bitterly cold and wet, she still loved this task that allowed her out of the confines of hearth and home and into the air. She walked along Dorrator Road towards the edges of the town, where she could let Noble run in the fields. After school the first thing she did was get the rope down from the hook at the back of the door and call Noble to her. After making a fuss of him she would loop the rope through his collar and be off. Once in the fields she began to train him to stay and sit until she called him, to fetch sticks, and to walk close to her heel. He was quick to learn and delighted to please his mistress and so was easy to train. Chrissie discovered a new happiness and comfort with Noble, who helped compensate her for the loss of her sisters at home. And comfort was much needed, for life with her father was not easy.
He was going through another heavy drinking phase and would often return home noisy and demanding. She hated it. There was no one else to share the burden of humouring him or deflecting him from something that was getting him all worked up. She could not relax in her father’s presence when he had been drinking for fear of what he would do or say next.
One night he staggered into the kitchen holding on to the door. Chrissie was finishing homework by the lamplight before going to her room and had not noticed how the time had passed. Normally she would be in bed as early as possible, but the essay for English had been taxing and it was not quite finished.
“Dinna tell me yer still at they bloody books o’ yours. Guid’s sake, lass, ye’ll ruin yer een writin’ in the dark.”
“I’m nearly finished, Father,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes on her work.
“Whit dae ye mean, nearly finished? Yer finished the noo. Get that stuff off the table and mak�
� yer faither a cup o’ tea.”
Even as he strode over to the table, Chrissie bundled her papers and books together and clutched them to her chest.
Her father had slumped into the armchair by the fire. She scurried through to the bedroom with her papers. Noble got out of his bed and followed her back through to the kitchen. By now her father was struggling to get his boots off, his strong working hands fumbling with the laces, which he had in his drunken state managed to get knotted several times.
“Chrissie, help me get these boots off my feet.”
She knelt down and patiently loosened the knots while her father stroked Noble’s head. The dog had a good calming effect on her father, yet another way he helped lighten this troubled household.
Just when Chrissie’s pulse rate was settling back to normal, her father suddenly sat upright.
“Noo, whaur’s the tea! I askit ye tae mak’ me a cup o’ tea!”
Immediately she rose to her feet and went over to see to the kettle. It was not far off the boil. She got the tea-caddy down from the shelf and spooned three scoops into the pot to make it strong as he liked it, without waiting too long for it to brew. She looked in the cake tins for something to offer him. She found some ginger parkin. She put everything on a tray and carried it over to the table.
“Here we are, Faither. Tea is served,” she said lightly, hoping to keep a quiet atmosphere.
“Tea is served?” he mimicked derisorily. “Whit airs and graces is this ye’re pittin’ on? That bloody Fa’kirk High makin’ a lady o’ ye, is it? A lady wha winna remember her low beginnings in a foundry cottage? Aye, I can jist see it. A right little Miss Hoity Toity.” His workman’s hand, powerful from all its hard use but clumsy, reached out for the cup. Whether his drunken state had blurred his vision or he was not concentrating properly, he ended up knocking the filled cup of hot tea from the table to the floor, where it just missed Chrissie’s feet. Although no harm was done she yelped in shock and Noble was on his feet at her side nuzzling his head into her hand and licking her in reassurance. When John continued his tirade, the dog turned to face him, his shoulders nudging Chrissie further away from danger and a deep throated growl of warning emanated from him as he faced her father. Instinctively he knew who was vulnerable here. Although the big man stroked him lovingly at times, he knew Chrissie was his mistress and the one he must protect. John quietened.
Her confidence briefly strengthened, Chrissie left the room with Noble. Then she sat on the bed, shaking and weeping, while Noble licked her hand and whined in sympathy.
The next day when she came home from school, she took Noble and a few pieces of clothing in a bag and set off for Coatbridge to see Isa. When she and Maggie heard her story they both said she must stay there for a few days. They would manage fine. The one problem was that Peter would have to return to the marital bed. Isa had known she would have to deal with this sometime. It might as well be now. Chrissie certainly needed some respite from their father. She shuddered to think of her being just sixteen and handling him on her own.
She cuddled her baby daughter protectively. There was such a sour feeling to everything right now. There was a hatred and aversion to Peter for his carelessness and lack of love. He was not the man she had thought he was when she married him: he had lied to her about his savings; he had been callous when she went into labour; and in rejecting his new baby daughter, he had rejected her too, blaming her for not giving him a son. And yet Isa desperately needed comforting. She wanted to be held. She wanted him the way he had been when they courted, when they had been on honeymoon: attentive, humorous, admiring her, laughing with her, thinking up trips and treats for her. Was that Peter not still somewhere inside her surly, distant husband?
The three sisters set the table, looked after the children and made the meals. Janet was being called Netta by her big sister and the family liked the sound of that, so Netta she became. Little Margaret loved the dog and he put up with his tail being held and a toddler running after him because he was with his mistress. The women were relaxed with each other and Isa began to heal in their company.
They set up the marital room with Netta’s cot on Isa’s side of the bed and Margaret’s at Peter’s. Chrissie and Margaret shared the spare double bed and Noble slept on a rug at Chrissie’s side of the room.
Having the children in the room with them helped Peter and Isa cope with the arrangement. He had no problem with sharing his home with Isa’s sisters but the lack of privacy meant it was hard to talk about personal things. In some ways that allowed them to carry on dealing with basic practicalities like meals, shopping, caring for the children. But it left wounds untended, which kept paining them both. He was disappointed, yet knew he had to accept his new daughter. He could hold her now and nurse her if Isa were busy with wee Margaret. He knew there was a coldness between him and his wife, which he had caused by his poor behaviour, but he could not bring himself to apologise. To do so would be to admit to full culpability and part of him knew that Isa had her own guilt in the affair. She should have known he would be disappointed and offered some consolation. She had made her heart hard towards him, he felt, and was going to make him pay dearly for his natural manly disappointment. She was expecting him to win her back with apologies and gifts and promises and he wanted none of it until she saw things from where he stood, as a failure in his father’s eyes. If she could just see where he was coming from it would help him bridge the gap between them. Without that first move he could not see how to make things right.
Isa of course was in retreat from him and on the defensive for her girls. Where was her husband as protector of their welfare? How he had let her down. She could not understand his reaction on the day of Netta’s birth. There had been no words of comfort for her in her exhausted state, no desire for the details of the harrowing experience, no sympathy for her pain. Not even a glance at his newborn child. What kind of man was he? Cold, callous, selfish and utterly unreliable, was her conclusion. This would not be kissed away in the morning. There was a split in their relationship as if a fissure had opened in the ground between them, leaving them stranded on either side of an awkward chasm.
*
Chrissie could not just stay in Coatbridge if she was to be at school in Falkirk. To have a few days away was one thing, but indefinitely it could not work. As they were trying to sort something out, John Dick arrived at the house on Sunday afternoon. After taking tea and fussing over his granddaughters, he then announced that he would be taking the dog back with him to Falkirk.
“What?” gasped Chrissie.
“You heard,” John stated firmly. “Noble will be coming back with me. I paid for him, the licence is in my name and he belongs with his owner.” John bent down to pat the dog’s head and Noble wagged his tail. The others were stunned. What would Chrissie say now? She said nothing and left the room. Her father finished his tea. Margaret gathered the tea things on the tray and took them through to the kitchen.
A few minutes later Chrissie emerged from the bedroom with her bag packed.
“If Noble is going home with you then I’m coming too,” she announced.
“That will be grand,” said her father. “It’s where you belong, right enough.”
His was the only heart that was filled with joy that day: he was getting his housekeeper back, as well as his youngest daughter. But the others were all fearful for Chrissie returning to his volatile temper and demanding behaviour.
Chrissie was also facing pressure at the school. Although she was doing well in all her subjects and on course to do well in her Higher exams, the taunting had been incessant and she still felt she did not belong at the High School. With her father’s controlling behaviour at home as well, she was now at the point where something had to change. Since she could not change her father or leave him, and since he insisted on having the dog, she decided she would have to leave school and find a job. So she began looking in the papers for some work.
Eventually she found an a
dvert for a cleaner/housekeeper for the owners of an antique shop in Falkirk. She took an afternoon off school feigning sickness and went to the interview, slipping on a jersey over her schoolgirl shirt.
She stood outside the shop briefly, looking in at the window, which was stuffed with all manner of objects covered in dust. Everything looked as if it needed a good polishing. There were tea sets and vases, oil paintings and little bureaux, lace cloths and silver cutlery. She was desperate to put the stuff in order and present it nicely. She pushed open the door and a little bell tinkled. There was a musty smell, a tang of iron and brass not cared for. Behind the desk there was a balding man in a worn brown overall peering at a ledger through round rimless spectacles. These he took off in his right hand as he looked up from the counter.
“Good afternoon, miss, and how may I help you?”
“I’m Miss Dick, here about the interview for the post of cleaner/housekeeper.”
“Ah yes, Miss Dick. Delighted to meet you. Do come through. My sister has some tea ready, I think. This way.” He pulled back a green velvet curtain and in doing so released thousands of dust motes into the afternoon shafts of sunlight. He coughed and motioned Chrissie under the curtain through to the parlour. Like the shop this room was cluttered with stuff, all layered with dust. There were three chairs and a little table in the centre like an oasis amidst the chaos. On it were some china cups and a plate of cut fruitcake.
His sister had ginger hair held up with pins, some of which were coming undone, causing the hair to fall about her face and neck in wisps, which on a younger, prettier girl might have been considered charming, but on this middle-aged, harassed creature just looked dishevelled. She motioned to Chrissie to take a seat and began to pour out some tea.
“Now then, Miss Dick. Tell us something about yourself.”
“Well. I am seventeen. I live here in Falkirk with my father. I have experience of housekeeping and cooking from looking after him. My mother died a long time ago and so my sisters and I took over the running of the house. I can launder and sew too. My sisters have learned a lot in their jobs as cooks and housemaids and have passed on what they learned to me. I am hard-working.” She paused. What else could she say to convince them to give her a job? “You have beautiful things here, but it must be so hard to keep them all clean.”
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