‘I’m sorry, Mrs MacDougall. I heard you cleaning and since it is just you and me, I thought you might like a cup of tea.’
‘You heard me cleaning? Have you nothing better to do than to sit listening to folk going about their business? If you have so much time on your hands, this stair needs a bit of attention, but I expect your man will be back soon and he will be looking for his tea. You should be too busy for a fly cup at this time of the day, Agnes.’
‘Well, he is going to be late tonight. We were at an SNP conference.’
‘Don’t talk to me about that gang,’ she said, pushing past me and running her finger along the banister. ‘It is time this war ended so that we can get sensible men like Professor Schramml back. He always took his turn on the stair and went that wee bit extra with the duster.’ She looked at me. ‘He is sadly missed.’
She was just one of those wrong-headed folk. She clumped down the stairs and banged the door of her flat shut. I sat down on the landing and it grew very quiet. I knew the family opposite the Professor had gone to their cottage in Fife, and the two bachelors on the top floor were away fighting. I grew cold sitting there looking up at the skylight and I leant over the railing to see how far it was to the bikes chained at the bottom. I counted twenty-one steps down to my front door.
In my bedroom, I took off my dress and lay down under the quilt, and even though it was only six o’clock, I tried to sleep. At the farm, the coos would be coming in to be milked and for some reason the thought of them walking together, with their heads nodding, made me want to greet.
Jeff and Douglas didn’t get in until two in the morning, laughing as they stumbled through the hall to the kitchen. I thought I heard Jeff saying, ‘It will all be different when you are Gauleiter of Scotland, Douglas.’ There was the clink of whisky glasses being put on a tray. I thought about going through to tell them there was soup in the pan, but Jeff put his head round the door before I could get up, and slurred, ‘How is my sleeping beauty?’ He didn’t wait for an answer.
6
Douglas slept on the divan in Jeff’s study but was gone before breakfast, and Jeff left after a cup of tea and a couple of aspirin. Later that day, I could see from my kitchen window it was one of those sudden, heavy rainstorms that all farmers dread. The trees at the back of the house began to shake as the ball of wind jumped from one to another, pushing the soft, summer leaves down. Sunlight struck Arthur’s Seat in the distance, turning it gold against a charcoal sky and it grew darker and darker until, just for a second, the wind dropped and the first splashes of rain fell. It was soon driving against the glass at the front of the flat and the stair door banged. After running round to push up all the windows with my pole, as Jeff still hadn’t replaced the ropes, I looked over at the empty mansion behind us. The windows were dark and bare of curtains, and it made me feel mair lonely. Jeff was at another evening talk at the university so he would be late. As I stared at the black trunks of the trees they seemed to twist themselves into figures, standing with their arms raised up to the sky or pointing fingers at their neighbours. Some of their faces looked like they were greetin’; others kept a calm sough.
There was a small movement at the foot of the largest witch elm and it gave me a shock when a figure detached itself from the trunk and sat down with its head resting on its knees, a coat pulled over its head. The rain was so heavy that it bounced off the fabric, and was falling in such grey gusts that I could barely make out the figure any more. It stopped moving altogether and I was less sure it was human and not some trick of the gloomy half-light. I put my hand under the dishes I was washing to look for the last piece of green soap, and when I looked back, a person was nearing the tree, their arm stretched out as if they were approaching a stray that might bite. For a moment I thought it was Mrs MacDougall in her green mackintosh, but she was sure to have her feet up in front of her fire, knitting socks for servicemen and listening to the latest list of casualties on the wireless. I could imagine the thick, white wool slipping round the knobbly joints of her hands. Then Jeff burst into the kitchen, much earlier than I expected, shaking his coat and hanging it near the range. He kissed me, sat down and opened his paper. ‘Fancy the latest?’ he asked, smoothing out the creases. ‘Here’s one for you: “Plan for Action. Wars are won by planning. This is as true whether you are fighting Germans – or germs. Each harmless, tiny drop of Milton – as it slips into the water – carries within it a scientific plan for action that would be the envy of any general.”’
I was concentrating on the figures walking towards the gate and didn’t answer him. When I looked round he was bent over the pages, peering at the print, with the towel from the range over his shoulders.
‘There are two people out there, Jeff. They’re drookit.’
‘Nonsense,’ he replied, ‘no one would be out there on a night like this. I got a lift and that was bad enough.’
‘Come and see for yourself.’
He stood beside me, his reading glasses sliding down his nose. It was raining even harder than before.
‘I can’t see a thing. Your window is all steamed up. Mother always kept hers crystal clear. I expect it was an ARP warden, if anyone.’
‘Well, if it was, there were two, and one of them was sitting down.’
‘That’s unlikely,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you have been peering at too much sewing?’
‘Why don’t you believe me?’ I banged the plate onto the draining board.
‘Mind you don’t break that,’ he said. ‘It’s china. None of your old crocks here.’
‘My mother has china, too.’
‘Must you be so shrill?’ he asked, and, folding his paper under his arm, he walked towards the door. ‘Call me when you’re finished. I’d like to read you a bit of my address for tomorrow night at the university, see if it resonates with a true native speaker.’
I stuck my tongue out when he left the room. I hadn’t done that since I was ten but his high-falutin’ ways made me cross. I took longer than I needed to dry the dishes, remembering how much he seemed to value me when we first met at the farm. I had been so shy of him when he set up his recording machine on the kitchen table, a real university man, and I hid my hands as the nails were broken. Mother had agreed to let him record me speaking as part of his research. He said it was important to capture Scots words now as they were disappearing like sna’ aff a dyke and I laughed at the way he said it, all posh as if he wasn’t really Scottish. He was a man of two voices, his town voice and his country voice. I only had one then, and it disappeared into the desert of my throat as the wheels began to wind the tape from one reel to the other with a slow, grinding sound. He pressed pause and told me to talk about a typical day on the farm. ‘What did you do this morning?’ he asked, and pushed the microphone closer to me. It was easier to speak now he’d told me what to say, and he scribbled in his notebook, saying, ‘Marvellous, marvellous, it is pure Burns, poetry.’ I blushed, and he leant forward and said, ‘I’m so grateful to you, Agnes. Ayrshire lives in you. You are the living receptacle of an ancient tongue.’
I had never been called a receptacle before, but he looked as if he wanted to lean forward and suck the words right out of me, so instead of laughing, I stood up and asked him if he wanted more tea. He made three more visits after that, always hungry for words, but when Mother suggested she might be able to help him, too, he said he really only needed one subject typical of each area and that I was doing nicely. ‘I’m sure she is,’ said Mother.
‘We’re hoping to get Scottish language and culture onto the university curriculum,’ said Jeff.
‘That would be a wonder,’ Mother replied. ‘It’s the language of plain folk, even when it hides behind a bonnier face than most. We were taught to speak properly at school.’
‘You underestimate your heritage,’ replied Jeff. ‘The speech of someone like Agnes would be the cornerstone of our research. I am a mere foot soldier in the fight against the totalitarianism of the English language and its bureaucracy.’<
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‘You’ve lost me there, Jeff,’ said Mother.
‘Its ideology spreads like tentacles through our native consciousness, suffocating the innate philosophy enshrined in our very speech; a democratic, socialist consciousness that is itself the enemy of fascism.’ He had jumped to his feet.
‘Well, it is braw that you care so much about the auld tongue,’ said Mother, ‘but you needn’t worry, I’m sure it is alive and well here, and always will be.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Jeff.
‘Well, you tell me, how many angels can sit on a pin?’ said Mother. ‘There are some questions not even the cleverest man can answer, so I find it pays not to worry.’ She pulled the tea cosy down on the teapot she had just filled to signal the end of the discussion. She never liked people to get too heated. ‘Tell me again, do you take milk with your tea?’
Those old days on the farm faded as I tidied my hair in the bathroom mirror, rolling it back round its foam shapers and pinning it in place. When I tilted my chin up, I looked a bit like Rita Hayworth. Then I took off my pinny and joined Jeff in the drawing room.
‘Much better,’ he said when I went through.
‘Now sit here,’ he said, pulling out a chair for me in the bay window, ‘and pretend you are at my talk.’
I tried to look interested, like a good wife. The rain was still drumming down and the whole block creaked in the wind. There was a mark on my skirt. ‘Agnes?’ said Jeff, and leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece, he cleared his throat. He began to scan the pages without speaking.
‘I’m waiting,’ I said.
He took a pencil from behind his ear and altered a line before turning to me. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that I have temporarily taken over as principal researcher for the Scottish Dictionary, following the sad death of the previous incumbent, who took this mighty work to “C”.’
‘“C” isn’t very far on,’ I said.
‘That is the point, Agnes. It is all still to do.’
‘How can you do it when there is a war on?’
‘Well, someone has to.’
‘But why now? Why not after it is all over? Aren’t you scared the Germans are coming? Mr Black said you will be writing a German dictionary if you don’t watch out.’
‘Did he? And what would a butcher know about the value of words?’
‘They say his son is in hospital down south. They weren’t sure he would survive.’
‘And did he?’
‘Well, Mrs MacDougall says he’s a bit glaikit now, and he lost his leg. He is only nineteen.’
‘Poor sod.’ Jeff’s eyes went back to the papers in his hand. ‘Well, he shouldn’t have signed up.’
‘Jeff, everyone is signing up.’
‘Exactly. That is why we are in this mess.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Well, if they didn’t dance to the tune of some jumped-up motorcycle courier called Adolf, or a load of English generals on this side of the Channel, there wouldn’t be a war, would there?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘You don’t understand much, Agnes.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing. Now, do you want to hear this speech?’ He corrected a word with his pencil.
‘No, not now. I’m not in the mood.’ I got up to close the blinds. I heard the scuff of his slippers on the carpet and he pulled a curl loose at the nape of my neck. ‘Don’t be cross, Pip,’ and I felt his breath as he nuzzled into the top of my collarbone and pulled my ear lobe with his teeth. ‘You are a very beautiful and brilliant girl, far too beautiful to need brains at all.’
He wound my hair round his finger and pulled my hips back against his. His hand ran down my thigh. It was dizzying, and I let him carry me through to the bedroom with the wind still beating in the trees.
I was lying with my head pillowed on Jeff’s arm when I heard the floorboards creak upstairs in the Professor’s flat, and a short, scraping sound like a match being struck. It was so unexpected that I stared at the ceiling and held my breath, but it didn’t happen again. I began to doubt I had heard it at all when I heard the Professor’s front door shut, and then the tap of feet on the stone steps. They stopped at Mrs MacDougall’s flat. Her door opened and clicked shut and then it was all quiet again. Jeff opened his eyes and gazed at me. ‘I love you, Pip,’ he said.
We kissed. ‘Why would Mrs MacDougall be in Professor Schramml’s flat at this time of night?’ I asked.
He leant back and looked at me. ‘Don’t mention Mrs MacDougall.’ He dropped his voice to a baritone. ‘It kills my ardour.’
When I didn’t laugh and sat up instead, pushing his arms off, he suggested, ‘Maybe she left a window open? She likes to keep everything ship-shape. The war will be over one day and I expect he will come back. She always had a soft spot for him, used to call him “that poor German widower” and take him bowls of soup. She was as pleased as punch when he left a key with her.’
‘I thought I heard more footsteps upstairs just now. Listen.’
He walked his fingers along my arm without answering.
The last drops of the storm ran down the windowpane. The sky was dark. ‘I don’t like the war,’ I said.
‘I know, Pip. No one does.’ And he held me close. He rubbed my tummy and said, ‘Maybe this time we’ll be lucky and you’ll have a new life to think of.’
But I didn’t want to bring a bairn into this war. I felt like the marching feet in the newsreel were bringing death closer, and I tried not to imagine the Nazis on Morningside Road, carrying their swastikas to the castle.
7
I was very nervous about meeting Jeff’s colleagues for the first time, although he claimed they would be very nice to me as the wife of the speaker. He thought it was time I went out and made friends, instead of worrying about pernickety, old Mrs MacDougall. I spent a long time washing my hair and rinsed it with the last of Jeff’s beer to make it shine. He had dug out an old dress of his mother’s from the wardrobe and laid it on the bed. It was white satin, cut on the bias, and looked a bit 1930s to me. He said a corsage from the garden would bring it right up to date and I could wear his mother’s Arctic fox stole. It was the most expensive kind, caught in its white winter coat. He said she had worn it with a blue ribbon when the National Party and the Scottish Party joined together in 1934. Jeff kissed me before we left and said he was proud to have me on his arm, but he must have forgotten because when we arrived, he left me by the mantelpiece with a glass of sherry, which I don’t like, and went off with a colleague to fine-tune his speech.
The room was panelled with glass-fronted bookcases, each closed with a little, gold key. The books looked very old. There was cornicing like ours, which made the white walls look like a wedding cake, and the floors were covered with a deep red carpet.
‘You seem to have been quite abandoned, dear,’ said a middle-aged woman with wee, round glasses and a tweed suit. She held out her hand. ‘Dr Gray, Classics, but you can call me Sylvia.’ She removed a small whistle from round her neck and put it in her pocket. ‘I have this for the bloody dogs but keep forgetting to take it off. You are?’
‘Agnes,’ I said, and we shook hands, like Jeff had told me to. ‘What kind of dogs do you have?’
‘Mad, bad and diabetic. Schnauzers – probably be rounded up for being German if this war goes on much longer. What are you reading, Agnes?’ she asked.
‘I’m not a student,’ I said. ‘I’m just Jeff’s wife.’
‘Jeff McCaffrey? How marvellous. What a talent he has for languages. I think he’ll take that dictionary to “Z” before 1943. What do you think?’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. She spoke so fast and stared at me through lenses that made her eyes very big.
‘So what do you do all day?’ she asked.
‘I am at home looking after Jeff.’
‘Quite right, dear, someone has to,’ she said with a smile. �
�I must say he has been looking much better since you took him in hand. More dapper and, some would say, more fragrant.’ She nudged me. ‘He went a bit downhill after his mother died.’
I took a sip of my sherry and Sylvia grabbed the arm of a woman just a little older than me, who was passing.
‘Let me introduce you to one of our bright, young things. Millie Dow. This is Agnes McCaffrey, Jeff’s wife. Agnes, Millie.’
‘Lovely to meet you,’ said Millie. ‘I’m very much looking forward to Jeff’s paper. I expect he has bored you rigid with it. Read it a hundred times in search of the perfect conclusion?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘He just showed it to me last night.’
‘Really?’ said Millie. ‘I would have thought you’d be the perfect captive audience.’
‘Jeff doesn’t tell me much about what he does.’
‘Oh,’ said Millie, ‘you’re lucky. I can never get him to stop talking. Not that what he is saying about the genesis of Lowland Scots isn’t very interesting, of course.’
I took another sip from my glass.
‘What a beautiful dress,’ she said. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It was Jeff’s mother’s,’ I replied, but she didn’t answer. Her eye had fallen on a small moth hole I hadn’t noticed on my shoulder strap. Our eyes met. I was going to say, ‘make do and mend’, but she had turned away, waving her empty glass and shouting across the room, ‘Ewan, you simply must get me a refill. This sherry is ambrosia, darling.’
I was alone again. Jeff looked over from the dais, where he was now discussing his paper with a very old man. He waved, but was leafing through the pages before I could mouth the word ‘help’ at him. The sound of it was sitting on my tongue, half-swallowed, when Sylvia emerged from a sea of backs carrying a plate of wee cheese pies. ‘Some genius has rustled these up,’ she said. ‘You must try one.’
I took a bite and the pastry crumbled down my chin.
‘Good?’ she asked as I wiped the crumbs from my dress and lips. ‘Now don’t tell me that fly-by-night, Millie, has abandoned you?’ But before I could reply, she added, ‘Of course, she really is leaving us. Joining the WAAF. Said all the best-looking boys are airmen. Something about a squadron of angels. I’m past all that myself. Gave up on men years ago. I can heartily recommend it.’ She smiled at me. ‘Ever thought of signing up? Even Jeff can’t be a full-time job.’
Capital Union, A Page 3