Capital Union, A

by Hendry, Victoria

  ‘Well, why are you joking in German in a war?’

  ‘We are linguists, Pip. It is what we do. It’s a game.’

  ‘Well, I’m not having any fun.’

  ‘I thought I could rely on you for support.’

  ‘You could.’

  ‘Could or can?’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘Do you still love me?’ He held out his arms.

  I remembered Millie saying how much he talked to her, and his easy laughter with Douglas. He rationed everything with me. I had the scraps from his life.

  ‘I love you, Pip,’ he said. ‘I need you. I think they are going to send me to jail, too. I’ll be a nationalist martyr like Douglas.’

  ‘Why bother, Jeff? Douglas has already made the point about Westminster. You’re a nobody, like me. Why not work for an office somewhere? Drive an ambulance, anything.’

  ‘Strength in numbers? Unfinished business?’

  ‘It’s not the time. Hitler is coming. I don’t want you shouting it wisnae me, and tearing up a copy of the Treaty of Union in front of him when he marches up Falkland Terrace. You need to fight this fight. It’s not 1707 now.’

  ‘But I don’t want to shoot anyone. I can’t imagine taking up a gun. I am a paper warrior.’ He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. I felt annoyed with him. His nose was streaming and his face was going red. He was greetin’ like my little cousin.

  ‘Hold me, Pip.’ He nuzzled his face into my breast, but I didn’t kiss his curls, which smelt of cigarette smoke and hat felt. The ceiling upstairs creaked, but he didn’t notice. I tried to breathe more deeply so he would think I was relaxed, but my chest ached by the time he released me and wandered into his study.

  ‘Perhaps you could bring me some of that stew in half an hour,’ he called over his shoulder.

  13

  A week later I saw Saughton prison for the first time. It stood in the middle of long grass behind high walls near the Water of Leith. There were bars at the windows. The flats nearby looked much poorer than ours, with drying greens at the front. The Pentlands stretched between the prison and the south. I parked my bike at the gate. Jeff had been feeling sick and asked me to go alone. He claimed it was my cooking. Cracked, white tiles lined the walls of the waiting room and two old men sat on the benches in the centre. The warder didn’t smile as he took my pass and showed me into the narrow visiting room. He lifted up a bar that ran the room’s length, and dropped it into place before me. Douglas was leaning on an identical metal rail opposite. The warder stood at one end between us, filling the doorway.

  ‘Good of you to come, Agnes,’ said Douglas. He looked tired. ‘Is Jeff all right?’

  I nodded. ‘Just an upset stomach. He heard you got to play the harmonium on Sunday, so he thought you might like some Bach and Mendelssohn.’ I held the music out towards him, but the warder took it from my hand and leafed through the pages, looking for writing, before passing it to Douglas.

  ‘This will be perfect,’ he said, and smiled. My eyes must have been shining with pleasure because he added, ‘You look particularly lovely today, a ministering angel.’

  I blushed and smoothed down my polka-dot dress. ‘So, how are they treating you?’ I asked, to hide my embarrassment.

  ‘Admirably,’ he replied with a glance at the warder, who stared straight ahead as if he had cloth ears. ‘I attend a garden party in the mornings and spend my evenings very profitably translating Theognis.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, a cynical Greek reprobate like myself, although considerably older. “All’s gone to the crows and ruined, we’ve none to blame…” I might ask Jeff about a couple of points. I believe he read Greek at Edinburgh? I am allowed to send a number of letters out but, as you know, my visits are strictly rationed.’

  ‘Well, this might help keep your strength up,’ I said, reaching over a bar of chocolate from my pocket. The warder stepped forward and pushed my hand back.

  ‘No supplementary food rations for the prisoners,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s just a sweetie,’ I replied.

  ‘No supplementary food rations,’ he repeated.

  Douglas patted his stomach. ‘Better for the figure now that I am subject to hours of enforced inactivity. I wonder if you might send a telegram to my parents telling them that King George’s establishment is treating their guest tolerably well.’

  I nodded and put the chocolate back in my bag.

  The warder tapped his watch.

  ‘Before you go, Agnes, could you tell Jeff that the Party is getting up a petition? Perhaps he could check that stays on course?’

  ‘I am sure he’ll try, but he is up before the tribunal any day now. He might be your cellmate before you know it.’

  ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that,’ he said.

  The warder steered me back to the waiting room with a hand on my back. I tried not to greet as I walked past the old men. In the corner, a woman was nursing her baby.

  I was peched out cycling home up the hill from Balgreen to Morningside. On Canaan Lane, nurses in their blue and white uniforms were wheeling injured servicemen back to Astley Ainslie Hospital after some fresh air. I remembered the German upstairs, not much older than me. I didn’t know his name.

  Jeff met me at the door, waving a newspaper article about Douglas’ conviction. ‘They are calling the SNP a party which looks both ways – pro-war but anti-conscription. They are calling Douglas a Janus.’

  I walked past him. Why was it only at home that I found so many words I didn’t understand?

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jeff asked.

  ‘The kitchen. I’m tired. Do you want some tea?’

  He followed me through. ‘How was Douglas? Did you get the music to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was fine.’

  ‘Did he give you a message for me?’

  ‘Something about a petition.’

  ‘It’s in hand.’ He stood at the window.

  ‘I could help,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ He pulled a dead leaf off one of the geraniums on the sill. ‘You are neglecting these.’

  ‘Must you have so little faith in me?’

  ‘Stick to what you know, Agnes. How many people can you call on in positions of power and influence?’

  I poured the dregs of the tea leaves from the pot into my compost bin and looked up. ‘Mrs MacDougall?’

  He didn’t laugh. ‘Our Chairman is jailed and you are making jokes.’

  ‘I mind the day you would have laughed at that.’

  ‘It’s no laughing matter. I am writing to all our major literary figures and Tom Johnston, the Secretary of State for Scotland.’

  I laid out the cups and saucers.

  ‘Do we have to use the good set?’ he asked. ‘Why not use the everyday ones?’

  ‘You didn’t complain when Douglas was here.’

  He walked over to me. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, he is your friend.’

  He smacked me on the bottom with his rolled up newspaper. ‘That is not what I meant.’

  ‘What did you mean, Jeff?’

  ‘You were gone a long time. What did you talk about on your visit?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You see our Chairman and you talked about nothing?’

  ‘He mentioned a Greek poet.’

  ‘A Greek poet? To you?’

  ‘I am not daft. He wants to ask you about him.’

  ‘So what was he called?’

  I couldn’t remember. His name had gone. ‘The kettle has boiled,’ I said, reaching out for it. Jeff laid his hand over mine.

  ‘Did you comfort him?’ He lifted my hand, and sucked my finger.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I tried to pull away. ‘The visiting room has rails, if you must know.’

  Jeff dropped my hand and sat down. ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ he said. ‘Live in a cage.’
<
br />   ‘It’s not too late. You could sign up.’

  ‘I have told you,’ he shouted. ‘I will not fight for Westminster.’

  ‘It’s not for Westminster, Jeff. It is for us.’

  ‘Not this again,’ he said, jumping up. ‘I am going out.’

  ‘What about your tea?’

  ‘Give it to your plants.’

  14

  At two o’clock he still wasn’t back, so I ate a couple of boiled eggs, and poked a hole in the bottom of the empty shells, like Mother did, to stop witches sailing to sea and sinking boats. I wished I hadn’t eaten both of them, as I could have taken one upstairs to the German, but I decided he could have my bread and butter. Jeff would never notice. The university was probably giving him lunch; motherly women who polished his fork on their aprons to make it shine, and called him ‘Sir’. I tidied my hair and went upstairs.

  Professor Schramml’s flat was very quiet when I crept in. For a moment I wondered if I should pick up the broom in case the German was dangerous, as Mrs MacDougall said he might be, but he was lying on his side, gazing towards the door as I entered. I wanted to throw up the blinds and windows to let in the air, but I was afraid someone might see us from the flats opposite. I showed him the bread wrapped in a cloth and went to find a plate in the kitchen, filled a glass with water and brought it through to him on a tray.

  He looked hungry but was still too weak to hold the plate, so I tore off small pieces of bread, dipped them in the water and fed him. His brown eyes watched me the whole time. The bandage round his head smelt bad, sticky with blood and pus. When I had dressed the wound with iodine and one of Mrs MacDougall’s bandages, I washed his face and hands with a cloth, and propped him up on his pillows. He touched his chest. ‘Hannes,’ he said. ‘Sie?’

  ‘Agnes,’ I replied.

  ‘Agnes,’ he repeated.

  I gave him two aspirin tablets. Then he pointed to the clock on the mantelpiece that had stopped, and I wound it up for him. He closed his eyes after that. I left him to sleep, and emptied the chanty before going downstairs.

  I had just climbed into the bath to try and get rid of the smell of illness that clung to my clothes, when the phone rang. It was Jeff.

  ‘Pip, it’s me. What took you so long?’ he said.

  ‘I was in the bath.’

  ‘It’s all right for some. Listen, I have decided to go to Glasgow to the Home Rule Association. We are trying to get a Douglas Grant Defence Committee together. I don’t have much time before the tribunal. They are processing people more quickly now.’

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Sometime tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘It is only one night. I’ll have a better chance with the authorities if they see we have teeth. Douglas’ article about the quislings in Scotland has really set the cat among the pigeons.’

  I didn’t ask what a quisling was.

  ‘I love you Pip… You have gone very quiet.’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘No chance of that. I have to go now. I’ll ask Sylvia to pop round and take you out in her motor. Keep you out of mischief. She took quite a shine to you at my do in the department.’

  15

  The next day, although I was feeling a bit wabbit, Sylvia insisted on taking me to the zoo to cheer me up. She said all men were a worry to their wives, and sensible women sought their fun elsewhere. ‘Political animals are the worst,’ she said. ‘I should know, my father was one.’

  She was a fast driver and was pleased with her car-share petrol allowance for driving for the Women’s Voluntary Service. By the time we climbed the stairs to the zoo entrance, I was feeling more excited. I wondered if the animals would look like they did in the films. I had seen Safari and was worried about meeting a lion. ‘It is supposed to be fun, Agnes,’ Sylvia said, taking my arm. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’

  ‘Are they all in cages?’ I asked.

  ‘Every last one,’ she replied.

  There were a lot of children standing in rows as we passed through the pavilion and there was bunting everywhere as if it was a festival. The ticket lady at the turnstile told us it was a ‘Holiday at Home’ rally to raise morale. All the children were in their school uniforms with their little gas masks on straps over their shoulders.

  ‘Glad I tied the dogs up outside,’ whispered Sylvia, ‘they would have been far too excited by all these playmates to remember their manners. Let’s march up to the top of the hill and then we can negotiate the crowds on the way down. It is pretty steep.’ She took my arm. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

  A sea lion broke the surface of the pond as we passed, blowing air out through his whiskers and making me jump. ‘I thought it was for ducks,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

  The flamingos were like pink chickens with long legs but she marched me on until we reached the parrots. Three tatty gentlemen sat on a dead branch in green coats arguing about whose perch it was. Their feathers were bedraggled and they looked towards us as if we could decide the matter. ‘You’ll have to sort it out yourselves, boys,’ said Sylvia, glancing down the hill at the first of the bairns to round the corner, and taking my arm.

  As we walked on up the steep path, the sound of the wee ones grew fainter and she told me the Latin names of all the animals we passed. ‘Darwin’s Rhea,’ she said, looking into the grass of a cage that seemed empty. ‘A most unusual bird. The male sits on the nest. Old Darwin toddled round South America looking for it for six months, and was halfway through one at dinner before he realised it wasn’t chicken.’

  I laughed and it felt good, but when I saw the gorilla in his cage I stopped. He was pulling at the hairs on his bald belly looking for fleas. I tried to pass him the chocolate that was still in my coat pocket, but Sylvia put a hand on my arm. ‘You’ll rot his teeth,’ she said. ‘He is more of a banana kind of a chap, although they seem to be to be in short supply in this blessed war. You’d think some seaman might have the nous to pick up a few as he sailed past Mombasa. Ships all over the world and we are eating from the hedgerows.’

  I thought of the wild strawberries and my snare. ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m having problems feeding myself and the dogs. They are hungry hunters, you know, and I can’t quite bring myself to squabble over bones at the butcher’s for them.’

  ‘I could get you a rabbit,’ I said.

  ‘From a magic hat?’ she asked, with a quizzical smile.

  ‘From the Blackford Hill. If you walk your dogs up there, I could give you one.’

  ‘Better get one for poor Douglas, too, then.’ We could see the prison below us in the distance.

  ‘I’ve just been to visit him.’

  ‘One of the privileged few. I hear it is hard to get a pass. How was he?’

  ‘Says he enjoys the garden party.’

  She laughed. ‘Well, they left him his sense of humour. That helps.’

  ‘He’s translating Theognis in the evening.’

  ‘“Not heeding poverty that eats the heart, nor foes who slander me.” How very apt,’ she replied. ‘Strong personal parallels with Douglas’ situation. The past won’t save him, although it might do something for his sanity in the short term. You can’t keep a good academic down.’ She tapped her head. ‘It is the mind, you see, dear. Free ranging. Soars like a bird, although I haven’t done much soaring myself recently.’ She looked round at the animals and sighed again. The first of the children on the rally reached us.

  ‘You need a “Holiday at Home”,’ I said, pointing at one of the zoo’s banners.

  ‘I prefer Italy,’ she replied, ‘but at least the wee mites are enjoying it.’ One of the children was shouting, ‘Wake up!’ at a leopard. ‘They don’t know half the mess we are in, of course. Their mothers protect them from the worst of it. The mixed blessing of white lies.’

  We found a bench and sat down. T
he city spread out below us.

  ‘But how are you?’ Sylvia asked, turning to me. ‘You look pale.’

  I wondered if she could see right through me; see the word ‘traitor’ emerging on my forehead?

  I wished I could tell her about the German. Sylvia misread my face. ‘The war will pass one day, my dear,’ she said. ‘All these foolish tensions will be forgotten and we will be able to get on with our lives. We just have to hope Douglas will stop stoking old fires when this is over. Not sure independence is all that relevant now. Everyone wants to chum up with America. I believe Churchill has given Roosevelt a ninety-year lease to stick his planes here. Bit like an awkward lodger: pays well, but wants a say in the running of the house.’

  She seemed to have forgotten Jeff was in the Party. I didn’t care about the Yanks.

  ‘Douglas wants Jeff to oversee a petition for his release,’ I said.

  ‘Does he indeed? I rather suspect he has had his go with the authorities.’

  ‘Jeff might be going to prison, too.’

  ‘That is the worst of it, all you young love birds being separated.’

  ‘I feel I have let him down.’ I wiped my eyes.

  ‘Nonsense, dear,’ Sylvia put her arm round me. ‘You are a good wife to Jeff and I am sure he loves you very much. You are very young. Wait until you see life through the far end of the telescope. These youthful days seem very small, like a silent movie.’ She laughed. ‘How would we write the captions if we could do it all again?’

  I leant against her. Her tweed jacket smelt of dog but I didn’t mind. She gave me a squeeze. ‘Better trot on,’ she said.

  Near a sign reading, ‘No species is an island’, we came to a standstill. There was a sea of children. ‘There must be thousands,’ Sylvia exclaimed.

  A woman was making a speech from a platform draped with Union Jacks, and at her signal to the band, the bairns began to sing God Save the King. Their voices were light and rose up into the air. Sylvia got out her whistle.

  16

  For days after the trip to Glasgow, Jeff was filled with a desperate energy to save Douglas, and he helped a man called Dr MacIntyre organise a Sunday march to Saughton prison. ‘We’ll serenade Douglas and cock a snook at the authorities. Two birds with one stone,’ he said, pulling an old kilted skirt of his mother’s from the wardrobe. He insisted I wear its garish tartan even though I had to secure it at the waist with safety pins. ‘She was proud of being a McGregor,’ he said. ‘Now you are one by marriage.’