Sisters Three

by Jessica Stirling

  Bernard did not rattle the letter-box until a quarter to seven. The moment he entered the hallway Lizzie realised that he too was in an unusually sombre mood. Her kiss was received without much enthusiasm and was not reciprocated.

  She hung up his coat, hat and scarf. ‘Busy day, dearest?’

  Bernard went directly to his chair by the fire and sat down.

  ‘Last minute client,’ he said, and opened his newspaper.

  Back in the kitchen Lizzie ladled oxtail soup into three bowls, carried them into the living-room and put them on the table in the corner by the window.

  Bernard got up from the fireside and came to the table and a moment later Rosie appeared, seated herself too and began to spoon hot soup into her mouth.

  Bad news often affected her husband and daughter’s mood. Lizzie glanced at the front page of the newspaper that lay on Bernard’s chair. It seemed innocuous enough; a blurred photograph of a burnt-out church, not even a church but a synagogue, in a town called Vienna, a long way from St Margaret’s at Knightswood Cross or St David’s at Polnoon.

  ‘What’s wrong with you both tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Bernard answered.

  Rosie glanced up, scowling not frowning. ‘Wha’?’

  ‘Is there something bad in the news?’ Lizzie said.

  ‘Wha’?’ said Rosie again, sounding stupid. ‘Wha’, wha’?’

  Bernard faced her. ‘Your mother’s asking why you’re so quiet.’

  ‘Ah-m eating.’

  Bernard said. ‘Did you catch the evening news on the wireless?’

  ‘Wha’?’ Irked at her lack of vocal control, Rosie took a firmer grip on herself. ‘Yes, eighteen churches have been razed to the ground in Austria.’

  ‘Synagogues,’ said Lizzie. ‘In Vienna.’

  Husband and daughter glanced at her in surprise.

  ‘How,’ said Bernard, ‘do you know that, dear?’

  ‘It’s there in your newspaper. I can read, you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bernard. ‘I just didn’t think you were interested.’

  ‘Is that what’s making you both so depressed?’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Jewish churches?’ said Rosie. ‘Nuh!’

  ‘What is it then?’ said Lizzie. ‘Something happen at the shop?’

  ‘Nuh!’ said Rosie again.

  They ate, all three, with studied concentration.

  Bernard murmured, ‘Very nice, Lizzie, very tasty indeed,’ but that was all that was said until pudding had been consumed, teapot and cups brought in from the kitchen and tea poured.

  Lizzie lifted her cup in both hands and blew across the surface of the tea. It seemed so ordinary, this life, so quiet and harmless that she couldn’t believe that anything would ever change, that Bernard and Rosie would grow older, that she would eventually wither into dust like her mother-in-law; Violet lying there in the little back bedroom, face to the wall, eyes open, plump little fists bunched under her chin so that it hardly seemed to matter that she’d stopped breathing; Violet Peabody who’d given two sons to the nation in the Great War, had made her contribution to history, had paid her widow’s mite. When she died, Lizzie wondered, what little tract of history would go to the grave with her?

  She felt suddenly weepy, no longer protected against the smell of smoke from the synagogues in a place she’d barely heard of in far-off, unimportant Europe where Bernard’s brothers had died and Frank, her errant husband, had vanished under the mud of Flanders.

  ‘Lizzie, are you crying?’

  There was concern in Bernard’s voice now, a note of repentance too.

  ‘No, it’s the tea, the hot tea.’

  ‘Stop making a fuss, Mother,’ Rosie said. ‘They’re only Jews.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lizzie. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Tell her, Bernard,’ said Rosie. ‘Tell her it’s got nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Do you believe that, Rosie?’ Bernard said.

  Rosie paused, shook her head. ‘Nuh.’

  Bernard got up from the table, pushing his chair back in a manner that suggested a rare outburst of anger, the cause of which Lizzie could not quite grasp. She wished that she wasn’t so stupid, so dull. She had understood the world when everything in it was small and hobnail hard and all she’d had to cope with was poverty and petty theft, hunger and loneliness, not the burning of synagogues and the tears of people she had never met.

  ‘It’s got everything to do with us.’ Bernard said, then to Lizzie’s dismay snatched up his newspaper and his cigarettes and headed off towards the water-closet in search of a bit of peace.

  * * *

  ‘Where are you are taking me?’ Penny Weston asked.

  ‘I told you. I’m taking you to supper.’

  ‘Supper?’

  ‘Dinner.’

  ‘Are there no supper rooms in Glasgow?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Dominic, ‘but I prefer not to be seen with you.’

  ‘That is not very flattering.’

  ‘I just don’t think we should be seen,’ Dominic told her, ‘and I’m pretty well known in Glasgow.’

  ‘You are famous?’

  ‘Not famous, no.’

  ‘Notorious?’

  ‘Known,’ Dominic said. ‘Familiar.’

  ‘You are familiar for being – what is it?’

  ‘Not for being anything in particular,’ said Dominic patiently. ‘I’m a businessman. I know a lot of different people.’

  ‘People who might tell your wife.’

  ‘My wife has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’

  ‘Believe what you like,’ said Dominic. ‘Anyhow, it’ll be simpler when you’re settled at the farm.’

  ‘What is it that will be more simple?’

  ‘Meetings.’

  ‘This farm, I will have to feed pigs every day?’

  ‘No pigs,’ said Dominic. ‘The pigs are all gone.’

  ‘Horses?’

  ‘No horses either.’

  ‘I like horses,’ the girl said. ‘Do you go riding?’

  ‘No,’ Dominic said. ‘I don’t go riding.’

  ‘What is it you do?’

  ‘I told you, I’m a businessman.’

  ‘For pleasure?’ Penny said.

  ‘My children give me pleasure.’

  ‘Does your wife give you pleasure too?’

  He could not decide if she was teasing him or if her questions were signs of insecurity. She didn’t seem insecure. She seemed remarkably self-assured for someone who had arrived in a strange country less than a week ago. He’d never travelled, of course, had never been a foreigner in a foreign land. He tried to imagine what it would be like to clamber off a liner in New York, Hamburg or Genoa all alone or, worse, dependent upon the charity of people who were not your people. The very thought of it made him edgy.

  He gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.

  ‘She is like me, your wife?’

  ‘No,’ Dominic said. ‘She’s nothing like you.’

  ‘Her name is Polly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Polly-wolly-doodle. Polly-put-the-kettle-on. Polly…’

  ‘Cut it out,’ Dominic said.

  ‘It is not respectful?’

  ‘No, it’s not respectful.’

  The girl laughed, a soft throaty purr. He had a sudden desire to slap her. He kept his eyes fixed on the empty road ahead. He hadn’t driven the moor road for two or three years and had forgotten the landmarks.

  ‘Was it Harker who told you about Polly?’

  ‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘Where is it you are taking me?’

  ‘To dinner. I told you. To a road-house.’

  ‘I think you are carrying me off. It is so dark outside.’ She put a hand to her mouth and drew her knees up. He could see the silky shape of her knees in the glow of the dash-lights. She pretended to be frightened, made her voice quaver. ‘What are you going to do to me out here in the darknes
s?’

  He fisted the wheel, bumped the Dolomite on to the verge and along it towards a field gate that had come at him out of the darkness. He braked abruptly, throwing the girl forward. He turned on her, glimpsed uncertainty and a trace, just a trace, of fear. He leaned across her lap, forearm pressing on her knees. She felt solid, like vulcanite. He leaned his shoulder into her breast, cupped her chin with his fingers and tipped her head back.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you can cut out the nonsense, Penny. You won’t twist me round your little finger like you do Harker. So wipe that smirk off your face and don’t ever make fun of my wife again. You hear what I’m saying?’

  He felt her throat move against his fingertips.

  She swallowed, then said, ‘I hear you, what you are saying.’

  ‘Good,’ Dominic said. ‘Remember it and we’ll get on just fine.’

  He put his hands on the wheel again and edged the car off the verge. He waited for her to say something, waited for her to cry, perhaps even to ask his forgiveness. But she said nothing, not a word. He had no sense of her mood during the last half-mile of the drive down into Rutherford.

  Only when he drew the car into the courtyard at the side of the road-house did she speak again. ‘What is the name of this place?’

  ‘Rutherford,’ he told her.

  ‘I thought it would be the farm you would take me too.’

  ‘No,’ Dominic said. ‘It’s a road-house. Do you know what a road-house is?’

  ‘An inn, a tavern for motorists,’ she said. ‘I did not know that you had such things in Scotland.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what we have in Scotland,’ said Dominic.

  He reached across her to open the passenger door but she stopped him, a hand on his arm. ‘Why have you brought me here, really?’

  ‘To meet someone.’

  ‘Who is it? Is it a man?’

  ‘Yes, his name’s Tony, Tony Lombard.’

  ‘And who is he?’

  ‘Someone I trust,’ said Dominic and a minute later escorted Miss Penny Weston across the cobbled courtyard into the Rutherford Arms.

  Chapter Four

  Rosie hadn’t expected to meet Mr MacGregor again, especially not so soon. After all he wasn’t plain Mister MacGregor but Detective Sergeant MacGregor of the City of Glasgow Police and the offices of the Criminal Investigation Department were in St Andrew’s Street off the Saltmarket which wasn’t exactly next door to Mandeville Square. She thought of him a great deal, though, for she was still exceeding curious as to what he’d hope to gain by bringing her the Hours.

  According to Mr Shelby the Hours was worth between ninety and one hundred pounds. There were no accounts of it having been stolen from a dealer or library and Sergeant MacGregor had refused to say how the volume had wound up in the hands of the CID.

  Rosie was not content to let the matter rest. She traced Heures à la Louange de la Vierge Marie through Book Auction Records, noted the names of the three dealers who had purchased a copy in the past decade and persuaded Albert to telephone each of them in turn. The results of her little investigation were very interesting indeed: a copy of the Hours that had been knocked down in Christie’s auction in 1929 had subsequently been acquired by the University of Glasgow. A telephone call from Albert to Mr Jackson, custodian of the university’s rare book collection, elicited the information that the volume was presently ‘on loan’, but Mr Jackson was not at liberty to say who had obtained permission to remove the valuable item from the collection. Albert thanked the librarian and hung up.

  He turned to Rosie. ‘Same copy we saw this morning, d’ you think?’

  ‘I would be surprised if it isn’t.’

  ‘Why would the CID want to show you a borrowed Hours?’

  ‘Have a guess, Albert?’

  ‘Your brother-in-law, the Manone chap?’

  ‘Dominic, yes,’ said Rosie.

  ‘I can’t quite see the point, though, can you?’

  ‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘But there is one, I’m sure.’

  ‘Most mysterious,’ said Albert, and Rosie agreed.

  Three days later the mystery was solved when Detective Sergeant MacGregor came clumping down into the basement of Miss Donaldson’s Tearooms in Gordon Street where Rosie took lunch.

  Miss Donaldson’s, all chintz, embroidered tablecloths and painted china, was one of the few restaurants in town where single women felt thoroughly at home. Sometimes Rosie was joined by Pam, a legal secretary, or Marion, under-manager of a shoe shop. On that afternoon, however, she happened to be alone at a table near the stairs when a pair of size twelves came hesitantly into view. She spotted the intruder fully a minute before he spotted her. The advent of a handsome young chap caused a stir among the ladies. Chatter dwindled to indignant muttering and every eye at every table fell upon the gentleman who, on reaching the foot of the stairs, seemed dismayed to discover that he was the only male in the place.

  Smiling to herself, Rosie let Sergeant MacGregor stew for a moment or two before she called out, ‘Hoy, here I am,’ in a voice that gained in bravado what it lacked in sophistication. The sergeant swung round and glowered at her from under his curly thatch. Patting one of the vacant chairs, Rosie said loudly, ‘You will be a great deal less conspicuous, Mr MacGregor, if you sit yourself down.’

  Gathering his coat about him he hauled out the chair and sat down, almost knocking over the cruet and the water jug in the process. Rosie resisted the temptation to tidy her hair and, ignoring the hubbub that had risen around her again, said, ‘My, My! Is this not a bizarre coincidence?’

  Sergeant MacGregor glanced this way and that then, leaning across the table, mumbled, ‘I didn’t realise this place was only for women.’

  ‘Oh, it isn’t.’ Rosie enunciated as correctly as she could under the circumstances. ‘I mean, men aren’t barred. They just do not seem to want to come here at the lunch hour.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Kenny MacGregor. ‘For a minute there I thought they were about to attack me.’

  ‘Some of them would, if you gave them half a chance. Do not tell me that you are intim-a-dated by a bunch o’ lassies, a big stalwart officer of the law like you?’ Rosie said. ‘Are you going to buy me lunch?’

  ‘What? Well…’

  ‘Is that not what you are doing here?’

  ‘Well, I…’

  ‘If you want to ask me questions,’ Rosie said, ‘then you are going to have to fork out for my answers. I do not come cheap, Sergeant MacGregor.’

  He had regained his composure. He wasn’t a CID officer for nothing. Presumably he had faced up to situations even more dangerous than this. He adjusted the position of his chair, plucked a menu from behind the water jug and studied it.

  ‘Mac-a-roni cheese,’ said Rosie. ‘And a jel-ly pud-ding. Please.’

  ‘Now I’m here,’ Sergeant MacGregor said, ‘I suppose I could go a bit of dinner myself.’

  ‘Lunch.’

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ he conceded. ‘Lunch.’

  ‘You can put it on ex-pen-ses.’

  ‘Heck I can,’ said Sergeant MacGregor, and grinned.

  He looked much more human when he smiled. Rosie suffered a sudden silly urge to pat his light brown heathery curls, and didn’t trust herself to speak for a moment or two. She followed the movement of the sergeant’s lips as he addressed the middle-aged waitress who, as if she too were a policeman, jotted down the order on her pad. When the waitress left for the kitchens, Kenny lifted his head.

  ‘Is it always this crowded at dinner – at lunch time?’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘Do you come here every day?’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘Can you – I hope I’m not being – I mean, can you hear me okay?’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘I mean hear me?’

  Rosie shook her head.

  ‘How then do you – I mean, you lip-read, is that it?’

  ‘Tha’s it,’ Rosie got out.


  ‘Am I easy to read?’

  ‘Yuh.’

  ‘You’re very good at it.’

  ‘I huh – have had a lot of practice.’

  ‘Have you been deaf since birth?’ His interest was genuine, his questions tentative. He didn’t want to offend her before he got to the point, though she was well aware that he was only softening her up.

  She found her voice again. ‘I had a fever when I was very small. It affected my hearing. I’ve been deaf for about twenty years.’

  ‘Can you hear anything at all?’

  ‘Some sounds.’

  ‘Voices?’

  ‘Only on the wireless, only su-um.’

  ‘You don’t have to be nervous, Rosie.’

  ‘I am not nuh-nervous.’

  ‘You’ve no reason to be nervous just because I’m a policeman.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me you were a policeman?’ Rosie said. ‘Did you think you would truh-trap me into saying something about my brother-in-law?’

  ‘How did Manone react when you told him I’d been to the shop?’

  ‘Huh-how did who react?’

  ‘Manone. Dominic.’

  ‘He did not react at all for the simple reason that I did not tell him.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘The book, the Hours, that was just a ruh-ooo…’ She could not get the word out. She gave a little groan of impatience with her disobedient tongue then went on, ‘You borrowed that book from the University library, didn’t you?’

  He looked down at the tablecloth. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘You are not the only one who knows how to be a detective,’ Rosie said.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘Whose idea was it?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I thought you’d be sure to tell Manone.’

  ‘Tell him what?’ said Rosie. ‘Tell him that a daft copper brought in a book for valuation? Dominic isn’t interested in books.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would work,’ Kenny MacGregor said.

  ‘Is that why you followed me here,’ said Rosie, ‘so I could tell you how my brother-in-law ruh – reacted? Sorry to disappoint you. If you must know, I don’t see much of Dominic. What he does is not my concern.’