The Cold Blast

by Mary Easson

  From my place in the throng I caught sight of Davy standing at the side of the road leaning back against a dry-stone wall with his ankles crossed. He rolled some tobacco for a smoke as he watched the men discuss the latest developments. A small group of his pals had gathered round him, saying nothing, just waiting for his lead. When I realised who was there I moved in closer but stayed out of sight as best I could.

  ‘Sheep,’ said Davy, spitting a thread of tobacco onto the road.

  ‘Aye, sheep,’ said Malky Moran. ‘Waitin’ tae be telt whit tae dae.’

  ‘Fearties,’ added Jimmy Grubb.

  ‘Great, big fearties,’ said Huey Bone.

  My friend, Rob, the youngest of the group by far, was surveying the crowd of men who were his workmates and his neighbours. He knew their names and he knew their families. He knew that they were probably afraid, afraid they could lose everything, afraid that they wouldn’t have a job and couldn’t put bread on the table or might find themselves evicted because of any action they might take to improve their working conditions. He knew the work that they did and the conditions that they worked in. Fearty was surely not a word he would use to describe them but he was keeping his thoughts to himself.

  Huey Bone gave Rob a stare. ‘Ye’ve no ower muckle tae say fur yersel, Rab. No got an opinion aboot it a’?’

  ‘Rob,’ came the reply. ‘Ma name’s Rob.’

  ‘Oh aye, R-o-b,’ replied Huey loudly sounding out the name with a prolonged roll of the ‘R’. ‘Rob.’

  Rob said nothing. Just glowered at Huey.

  ‘If we wait on thon lot daein’ somethin’ tae help theirsels, we’ll be here tae Kingdom come,’ said Davy. The rest of the group turned to him, waiting for the punchline. Eventually he said, ‘There’s things could be done.’ He paused again for effect. ‘Mebbe the workin’ man could hurry things up a bit. Ye ken, show folk we’re no gaunnae tak their snash onie longer.’

  ‘Aye, we’ll let folk ken we’re no gaunnae tak their snash onie longer. Thon’s whit we could dae, Davy,’ agreed Malky Moran.

  ‘They’ve got awa’ wi’ it lang enough,’ said Jimmy Grubb.

  ‘Ower lang, aye,’ agreed Huey Bone. Huey was staring at Rob, daring him not to express an opinion.

  ‘Whau dae ye have in mind?’ asked Rob after a while. ‘Whit folk?’

  Davy nodded along the road in the direction of Rowanhill. A pale green motor car was speeding towards them. Its fender glinted in the sunshine. Two women in fancy bonnets sat in the front seats, long scarves billowing out behind them.

  ‘Folk like yon,’ said Davy, screwing up his eyes for a better look.

  The others followed his gaze, studied the vehicle as it got closer to the crowd spread out across the road.

  Davy turned his attention to the last of his tobacco, drawing the smoke into the depth of his lungs. ‘They kinna folk is whau I’ve got in mind.’ He flicked away the butt of his cigarette before it burned his dirty fingers then ground it into the dirt with the heel of a large boot.

  The gang of five took several paces into the crowd of animated men who were unwittingly blocking the road to vehicular traffic. They sidestepped a particularly large group, and pretended to be looking elsewhere, listening to the discourse around them whilst intent on emerging on the Rowanhill side of the throng. I moved through within earshot for a better look. The pale green car came ever closer. It was hard to see the reaction on the driver’s face because of her goggles but the car was slowing down, that much was certain. Then it rolled forward and came to a stop.

  Davy said nothing from his position directly in front of the vehicle. He stood with his arms folded, cast his gaze across the highly polished bonnet.

  ‘Nice motor,’ he pronounced at last.

  ‘Why thank you, young sir,’ replied the driver. ‘Would you mind standing aside so that I might proceed?’

  Malky and Huey formed in beside Davy. They stared back at the woman and her passenger. Jimmy slowly circled the car, examining it in great detail. He pulled at something here and pushed something else there. He slapped the bodywork a couple of times like a bad-tempered ploughman might treat a lazy horse.

  ‘If you don’t mind, young man,’ the driver began, concerned to be hemmed in by such a large gathering of workmen whilst one manhandled her vehicle.

  The passenger jumped a foot in the air when Jimmy kicked at the offside tyre, directly behind where she sat. Then she gave a yelp when the driver sounded the horn.

  ‘Phee, I really don’t think that will help...’

  But the driver was losing patience. ‘Could you move to one side? And leave the tyre alone if you please.’ She was glaring at Jimmy who just grinned back at her. So she honked the horn again, fiercely this time.

  The passenger sank into her red leather seat as the noise of the horn had many heads turning.

  ‘If you don’t mind!’ called the driver. She waited, unsure. ‘Are you going to move out of the way?!’

  Then her passenger – who I could now see was Miss Fraser from the kirk – stood up holding onto the top of the windscreen.

  ‘Hello, all! Would you mind clearing a path?’ she cried out. She held out her kid-gloved hand like a road sign showing the way forward.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said, though nobody’d moved out of the way in the least. Their pleas had fallen on deaf ears since the men were still caught up in their own affairs.

  The women were looking nervously at each other, wondering what to do next. They had been polite. They had used the horn but to no effect. Miss Fraser, I supposed, knew the mood within the community through her acquaintance with local women like my mother, and she looked worried. Her friend, one of the Melville sisters, would be much more worried though. She was used to folk doing exactly what she told them, and wouldn’t know how to react when they didn’t.

  It might have occurred to me to help them had I been older and wiser. But I was just a young lad then and was not about to interfere in Davy’s business. It was more than my life was worth to do that so I watched intently, caught up in the drama in front of me.

  Davy stepped forward just then and caressed a dirty, calloused hand across the bonnet of the car. The sneer on his face caught Miss Melville by surprise as he came close.

  ‘Nice motor,’ he repeated, leaning in towards her ear. ‘Wouldnae mind a wee shot in her masel. If yer willin’ that is.’

  Malky and Huey sniggered with delight. Only Davy Birse could be that bold.

  The women stared back at him in alarm. They watched as he continued along the driver’s side of the vehicle only to melt away into the crowd. His companions did likewise.

  Relieved but flummoxed, the women soon saw the reason for the sudden change in their circumstance. Two officers of the local constabulary had appeared.

  ‘Yous ladies a’richt?’ enquired Constable Mackay, touching the peak of his cap.

  ‘Yes, perfectly,’ replied Miss Melville. ‘We’re fine now that you are here, constables!’

  She watched and waited as the second police officer urged the workmen to clear a path and be on their way.

  ‘Ye can never be too careful, ladies,’ warned Mackay, hovering around the motor and its female occupants whilst his colleague ensured safe passage up ahead.

  ‘It was rather alarming,’ Miss Melville continued. ‘It felt... well... threatening actually.’

  ‘I’m not sure we would have come to any particular harm, Phee,’ said Miss Fraser. ‘It was just unfortunate that we came upon the men on their way home and we got stuck in the road for a bit.’

  ‘Dinnae underestimate this lot,’ continued Mackay. ‘There’s some bad eggs amongst them, an ithers daft enough would dae their biddin’. Oftimes it’s the followers ye’ve tae watch, ladies. No the Big Man whau cries the shots, if ye get ma drift.’

  ‘Thank you, officer. I think you
came along just in time.’ Miss Melville relaxed back and let the motor roll forward.

  ‘Mind yersels, ladies,’ he warned. ‘There’s trouble brewin’ in this neck o’ the woods, mark ma words. But if ye get onie further bother, Constable Archibald Fergus MacKay is at yer service. Noo, safe hame. Mind how ye gang.’

  From the safety of the far side of the throng, Davy Birse was watching the motor car and its occupants move off towards the village. He followed it through narrowed eyes.

  ‘Thon was gallus, Davy,’ said Malky in admiration.

  ‘Aye, gallus,’ said Jimmy and Huey together.

  Huey stared at Rob, challenging him to say otherwise.

  ‘Ye best hope they dinnae ken ye again,’ said Rob. ‘They got a guid look at ye.’

  Malky, Jimmy and Huey sniggered in unison as they thought about how bold Davy had been and at the consternation on the driver’s face, her from the Big Hoose.

  ‘Ken me again?’ said Davy. He stood back with his arms outstretched. ‘Hae a look, lads. Whit dae ye see, eh?’

  He proceeded to tell them.

  ‘No big, no wee, an’ a bit oan the scrawny side. Mug? Black as the ace o’ spades,’ he pointed to his grinning face, disguised under a layer of coal dust that emphasised his thick, pink lips and tobacco-stained teeth, several of which were missing. ‘Hair? Black an’ a’ but maistly hidden unner a bunnet.’ He doffed his cap as if to a lady, eliciting laughter from his gang. ‘An’ auld jackit an’ troosers, mair patches than oniethin’ else, covered in coal frae the pit. An’ a pair o’ big boots.’ He looked down at his feet, lifted his trouser legs a shade. ‘Dae ye see onie body else like this roon aboot here, I’m wonderin’?’ He moved his hand round in a broad sweep indicating the crowd of workers who were all dressed exactly like him.

  Malky, Jimmy and Huey laughed. Davy Birse was bold AND clever.

  ‘We a’ look the same tae the Miss Melvilles o’ this world,’ declared Davy through gritted teeth. ‘She widnae ken me fae Adam if she seen me again.’

  Rob nodded. During their encounter on the road, I had noticed how he’d stayed in the background, fearful of being identified with the others. But Miss Fraser had stared him straight in the face from where she had been sitting in the braw green motor with the smart leather seats. She had been his Sabbath School teacher when he was a boy yet she had given no hint that she knew him. What did Rob make of that? Like Davy and the others, was he just one of the masses, one of the great unwashed who went down the pit and mined the coal? They were all the same to people like her. Was it making his blood boil by any chance?

  ‘We meetin’ at the usual place? asked Rob.

  ‘Aye, same place. Back o’ nine,’ ordered Davy. ‘An’ mind naebody kens whaur yer gaun.’

  But I knew where Rob would be going and wished that I didn’t. Whatever was going on, I didn’t like the sound of it and I feared for my friend. I felt that I barely knew Davy, the man I called brother. But I knew enough and it filled me with dread.

  Chapter 8

  Minn

  After the second milking, I herded the last of the kye out of the byre whilst two of the lads mucked out, telling me to hurry home or I’d be caught with another job to do. There was always more work to be done on the farm. And I wasn’t to worry, they jested, they’d see to the calves that were making a racket in the small byre. The terrible noise of them, distraught and confused, tugged at my heart strings. They were newly separated from their mothers. I wanted to go to them, taking comfort in pails of fresh, warm milk as I normally did after the milking was done. But I wanted to get home even more. It was the Sabbath and I hadn’t been able to get away for a couple of weeks on account of a lurgy that had kept some of us low so the work had taken longer than usual. I thanked the lads promising I’d make it up to them one of these days, and ran off, removing my apron for quickness as I crossed the yard, ignoring their quips about how I could best make it up to them. Dochie shouted if only I would meet him in the hay barn one night when the moon was up! It wasn’t the first time I’d had such an offer but there was only one lad I wanted to meet on a moonlit night and he didn’t bide at Netherside.

  In the small sleeping space under the stairs, I made up my bundle making sure I had Meg’s letter with me. I took it everywhere in my apron pocket as if my future depended on it. I was soon joined by Annie who had washed and dried the supper dishes at lightning speed. She picked up two bags of eggs, one for her and one for me, to be taken home as a kindness from the farmer’s wife who said we had worked especially hard. We shouted our cheerios, leaving by the back door. Mrs Davidson called out after us, Remember to shut in the hens in the hut below High Field, and we said that we would, on our way along the hill path together.

  A shower of summer rain moved along the valley behind us, far to the north. Grey clouds that had been building all day parted, pierced by shafts of yellow sunshine from the blue sky high above. We hurried over the stile onto the high pasture hoping the rain wouldn’t come our way so we would get home dry. Cresting the hill, we caught sight of the village and relaxed, the threat of rain and the worst of the climb over. It was a good sign we agreed – we were always looking for good signs, Annie and me. She took the right fork towards Parkgate House where her mother lived in an estate cottage on the edge of the wood. I made haste, scrambled over the wall and ran down the hill towards Mansefield, delighted to be back where I belonged after another week.

  Despite my constant longing to be back in the village and the chance of a glimpse of Rob, I was relieved to see that the steading was abandoned, devoid of men and boys, though I found my relief hard to fathom. Maybe my need for Rob was so great that I preferred not to see him at all, when the alternative might be cold rejection and shattered dreams. It didn’t bear thinking about. Pigeons fluttered and cooed in and out of the empty shell of the old inn, its shattered windows like cold, dark eyes looking out on the sunlit world and at me, the Graham lassie with a secret letter in her pocket, hurrying by on her way home.

  Jean was all by herself when I opened the door expecting to see the house teeming with children. She explained that the men were at the allotment and Sarah had taken the bairns for a walk, giving Jean a few precious minutes to herself – time to make supper and have the bath ready for their return. A plate of jam pieces, a jug of milk and twelve cups were waiting on the table. The tin bath sat on the hearth rug and was already part-full of hot water. A kettle and a pot were coming to the boil on the fire. I put my mother’s hat on the nail behind the door and saw her glance up at it – just a brief glimpse – but no words went between us.

  Would I like a cup of tea after my walk from Netherside?

  Perhaps Jean needed it more.

  Jean sat by a small sewing machine that burst into life at intervals through the application of pedal power. For somebody who couldn’t make a pot of porridge without leaving chaos in her wake, she was a dab-hand with a machine. She was getting clothes ready for the children to wear on Fair Day, now known as the Gala Day, and only two weeks hence. The bairns would have to look their best and, if possible, boots would have to be found for their feet. There would be a bit of borrowing back and forth between friends and a lot of sewing by Jean to ensure the large Graham brood was well turned out. I asked if there was anything I could do and Jean said that the tea was enough but if I could see my way to emptying the kettle into the bath and putting on some more water to boil then that would be much appreciated.

  We sat without talking.

  ‘Will you get time aff for the Gala Day?’ Jean enquired after a bit.

  ‘Mrs Davidson says Annie and me can lowse a bit early oan the Seturday an’ come ower fur the dance, if we like.’ I looked out of the window at a small group of people passing between the Rows.

  ‘An’ are ye gaun tae the dance?’ Jean asked, testing a newly sewn seam, pulling it taught.

  I shrugged. ‘I’ve niver been
afore.’

  ‘Thon’s no whit I asked. Here’s a better question. Would ye like tae gang tae the Gala Day dance, Minn?’

  ‘I suppose. But naebody’s asked me.’

  Jean persisted, ‘Are yer pals gaun? At seventeen, near-enough eighteen, yer age tae gang.’

  ‘Sadie cannae, oan accoont o’ her work. She cannae get awa’. But Jenny’s been at me for weeks.’ I had assumed I couldn’t go to the dance and hadn’t pursued the matter.

  ‘Ye’d like tae gang but ye’ve nuthin’ tae put oan. Is that it?’

  I shrugged again. ‘It disnae matter.’

  ‘Aye, it matters. It matters a lot,’ she insisted. She left her machine, went into the other room and came back holding up clothes on a hanger for me to see – a narrow, grey skirt with three large buttons down the front and a white blouse, plain but hardly worn.

  ‘But they’re yours.’ I recognised the outfit as the one Jean had worn when she had married my father.

  ‘They’re a wee bit big for ye but I can soon tak them in. Try them and we’ll see what we can do, mak them right for a young lass like yersel.’