by Maggie Craig
‘Shall I go up and get the next batch of drawings, Miss N?’ she had asked innocently, turning her sweet, blue-eyed gaze upon her supervisor. ‘To save you the climb up the stairs?’
‘Thank you, Miss Buchanan, but no. I think I can cope with the stairs. I’m not quite in my dotage yet.’ Miss Nugent had smiled frostily at Bella over the pince-nez specs.
‘In the name of the wee man!’ Bella declared that lunchtime as the girls congregated in the washroom to titivate in front of the mirrors. ‘How does that old witch ever expect me to find myself a man?’
Kate smiled at Bella, who stood with her hands on her hips, her generous breasts straining against the buttons of her overall. She could be coarse sometimes, but she was good-hearted.
‘There’s plenty out there, Bella.’ Drawing a comb through her own shiny chestnut locks, she nodded with her head towards the shipyard.
‘Huh! I don’t want one of them. I want a man who does a clean job.’ She smiled suddenly, a knowing curve of the lips. ‘Don’t you, Kate? I mean, maybe not a draughtsman like Peter Watt, for example.’ She paused, shooting a sly smile at Kate, who merely smiled back at her. ‘Someone like a cabinet-maker, then?’ Bella continued. ‘Tall, dark and handsome, and just coming to the end of his apprenticeship - a time-served man?’
‘If you think I’m going to rise to that one, Isabella Buchanan,’ Kate said firmly, ‘you must be dafter than you look.’
One day in the August of 1927, Kate found one of the new intake of apprentices sitting on the floor of the washroom crying her eyes out because Miss Nugent was insisting she used her right hand instead of her left.
‘I would do it if I could, Kate,’ sobbed the girl, Mary Deans, ‘but I cannae. I’ve always been left-handed. Got the strap for it at school until the teachers gave up on me.’ She gulped, and wiped a grubby hand across her eyes. She looked up at Kate, who was bending over her. ‘It comes out all messy if I use my right hand. You’ve got to be neat at this job. I’ll never make a tracer if she doesn’t let me use my left hand. I’ve tried, I really have. I just cannae do it!’ she wailed, bursting into a renewed bout of weeping.
‘Wheesht,’ Kate said, patting the girl on the shoulder. ‘I’ll sort it out for you, Mary. Don’t you worry. Wash your face and comb your hair and go home for your dinner and I’ll speak to Miss Nugent about it.’
Mary’s soft brown eyes were huge. ‘She’s that fierce though, Kate, d’ye no’ think so?’
‘I’m feeling a bit fierce myself this morning,’ Kate said grimly. ‘Go home for your dinner, Mary. I’ll sort this out.’
Peter Watt was clattering down the stairs as she saw Mary out into the corridor. He gave a low whistle of concern when he saw the girl’s face and registered that she’d been crying.
‘What’s up?’
Kate explained the situation to him and, on a sudden brainwave, asked him to see Mary home. That, she thought, watching them both go, Peter’s arm solicitously under Mary’s elbow, might just kill two birds with one stone. Mary was a bonnie girl.
Peter’s parting shot echoed Mary’s words. ‘Are you sure you’re fit for the old battle-axe, Kate?’
Kate marched back into the tracers’ office, her head held at a determined angle. Yes, she was fit for Miss Nugent. As she’d told Mary, she was feeling fierce - and tired too. They’d had a difficult night with Granny, who’d had them all up three times, havering about having to put a washing on and get the dinner cooked for the men. It had been a hard job to convince her that she didn’t need to do either of these things. Years of toil had left their mark. Granny’s whole life had been spent in washing clothes, cooking meals and cleaning houses. Running after other people, never having time to think about herself.
After they’d got her back to bed for the third time, Granny had one of her wee accidents which Kate had cleaned up. Jessie would have helped, but Kate had seen the distaste on her sister’s face and taken pity on her. Pearl, as usual, had managed to make herself scarce - some doing, at five o’clock in the morning.
Kate was worried about Barbara Baxter too. After that incident shortly before she herself had started at Donaldson’s, the girl had been fine for well over a year, but then the dizzy spells had started again. She’d had three in the past six months. Dr MacMillan had sent her up to the hospital, but the doctors there couldn’t seem to find anything wrong with her either. The Baxters were worried sick, and Robbie was developing a permanent little frown of anxiety between his dark eyebrows.
It all made Kate uncharacteristically blunt. She marched up to Miss Nugent’s table, set on a platform from which she commanded a good view of the entire room. Dimly aware that another woman was standing beside the supervisor, Kate made a request to have a few words with the latter which came out more like a demand. The Chief Tracer heard her out in silence, peered at her over the little gold-rimmed spectacles and spoke, finally, once Kate had drawn breath.
‘Are you quite finished, Miss Cameron?’
The icy tones brought a flush to Kate’s cheek.
‘Y-yes ... I’m finished. Thank you,’ she added, thinking it was an absurd thing to say. ‘So you’ll stop making Mary use her right hand?’
‘I shall give it my consideration, Miss Cameron.’
‘But...’ began Kate.
Miss Nugent’s voice, frosty already, sank to Arctic levels.
‘I believe, young lady, that I have previously had occasion to remind you that decisions here are taken by senior members of staff in consultation with Mr Donaldson himself.’ Her nostrils flared as she drew in a long breath. It made the pince-nez glasses rise. ‘Decisions are most definitely not made by apprentices who seem to have acquired ideas above their station.’ She inclined her head - a fraction of an inch. ‘That will be all, Miss Cameron.’
If Kate hadn’t been so tired and fed-up, she might have had the sense to stop there. She didn’t. Exasperated with Miss Nugent’s attitude, and incensed by the way she was being dismissed, she put her hands on her hips. Shades of Bella Buchanan and Agnes Baxter, she thought briefly. She had an inspired thought.
‘What advantage is it to Donaldson’s to have an apprentice they aren’t making the best use of?’
There was a throaty chuckle, not from the Chief Tracer, visibly bristling at the criticism all too obvious in Kate’s voice, but from the girl who stood by her desk.
‘She’s got you there, Miss N, don’t you think?’
Startled, Kate turned her head and found herself looking into the face of Marjorie Donaldson. The boss’s daughter. The girl smiled and stuck out her hand.
‘How do you do - Miss Cameron, is it?’ There were freckles across the bridge of her nose. ‘Your father works here too, I think. Didn’t I see you with him and your sisters a couple of years ago? At the launch of the Irish Princess?
Yes, thought Kate, you would remember that. I was wearing your cast-offs. Marjorie had red-gold hair and the creamy complexion, translucent like fine porcelain, which so often goes with it. She looked like a pale angel Kate decided, except that the grin which now broke over her features was more devilish than angelic.
‘That was the day that horrible man and his wife got soaked by the launch wave. I never saw anything so funny in my life!’ She was still holding out her hand. ‘I’m Marjorie Donaldson,’ she added politely - and unnecessarily.
‘I know who you are, Miss Donaldson,’ Kate said, taking the proffered hand with some reluctance, and ignoring the implicit invitation to share in the memories of the Irish Princess launch. She’d seen her a few times since then, but only from a distance - once during the dreadful few days of the General Strike last year. Marjorie had been one of the Bright Young Things who’d volunteered to keep things going when the workers of Glasgow and Clydebank had joined their fellows all over Britain by downing tools in support of the miners.
They’d all seen her, going through Yoker on a tram. Kate could remember it vividly. Marjorie had been acting as the clippie. She’d even managed to
get a conductress’s uniform from somewhere. She’d been standing next to the driver, a handsome fair-haired young man, throwing her head back and laughing at something he was saying. The pair of them had obviously seen it as a good laugh, a bit of a lark.
Andrew Baxter, coming up to fourteen and passionately interested in politics, had shouted after them. They were strike-breakers and blacklegs, dirty capitalists, exploiting the workers and grinding the faces of the poor.
‘Hark at Comrade Lenin,’ Pearl had said flippantly. Jessie Cameron, of course, had leaped to Andrew’s defence. She always did.
Kate brought her thoughts back to the present. The boss’s daughter was as elegant as she’d been on the day of the launch of the Irish Princess, her clothes in the latest style, of the best material and beautifully cut. I’ll bet she’s never had to clear up after her grandmother, thought Kate.
Marjorie Donaldson wasn’t pretty, though. She was slim, with a fashionably boyish figure, and she had that beautiful pale red hair and creamy skin, but her face was long and plain, her nose too big. Some might have described her as horsey. Kate, staring unsmiling at her as she dropped her hand, saw all this, and chided herself for the uncharitable thoughts. You couldn’t choose how you looked.
The girl did have a lovely mouth and a wide and generous smile. And she had introduced herself, hadn’t she, to one of the lowliest of her father’s employees? Beautiful manners then, thought Kate. Unlike my own, marching in here and doing an Agnes Baxter, without so much as a by-your-leave. The girl was saying something, asking her a question.
‘Yes.’ Miss Nugent answered for her. ‘Miss Cameron did design the menus for the last launch.’
During a slack morning Kate had occupied herself doing a drawing of an old sailing ship, basing it on a painting which hung behind Miss Nugent’s desk. She had added a border, in swirling scrolls of burgundy, gold and green, and then printed the name of the new ship in beautiful black Gothic lettering.
Without Kate’s knowledge, Bella and some of the other girls had shown the drawing to Miss Nugent, who in turn had shown it to the chief draughtsman on the floor above. It had gone all the way up to the design team, who had decided to use the drawing as the theme for the menus and programmes for the launch. The extra work had earned Kate a bonus of ten shillings which had gone straight into her Art School fund.
‘I thought your designs were lovely,’ Marjorie Donaldson said enthusiastically. ‘So - kind of ... medieval, I suppose. Have you studied art, Miss Cameron?’
‘A little,’ replied Kate. Marjorie Donaldson wasn’t to know that she’d studied art at Yoker school, and for the last two years at night classes in Clydebank, fees and materials carefully eked out of her wages - or what Lily let her keep of them.
‘You should think about going to classes in Glasgow,’ said Marjorie. ‘The Art School holds them most evenings and Saturdays too, mornings and afternoons. Do promise me you’ll think of it.’
‘It’s kind of you to take an interest, Miss Donaldson.’ Kate’s tone was very dry. Miss Nugent shot her a warning glance. It sent a clear message. This is the boss’s daughter, you know, and you, Miss Kathleen Cameron, are in enough hot water as it is.
‘You should think about going to classes in Glasgow.’ That was priceless. Kate thought of little else. She had hoped to make it for the start of the autumn term this year, but she was still too short of funds. Every month she visited her old teacher, Miss Noble, taking whatever she could spare out of her meagre wages. Miss Noble, who had learned not to mention the possibility of a loan to her former pupil. a second time, had gone with her to show her how to open a savings accounts at the Post Office. Kate had asked her to keep the passbook for her. If her mother found it, she would have it cleared out in five minutes flat. She felt a wee bit guilty about that - but only slightly. As it was, she thought she might be going to have to break into it. It was coming to decision-time about Jessie.
Kate gritted her teeth. She was determined that her clever wee sister was going to stay on at school to train as a teacher. That meant she couldn’t risk the Art School this September. Her own fund might have to be plundered to compensate for the delay in Jessie going out to earn a living. A teacher in the family. That would be worth a few sacrifices.
Kate scowled at herself in the mirror of the washroom. Another year, then - at least. Och, but it was gey hard to be patient!
‘Hurry up, Kate!’ shouted someone. ‘The dragon’ll be in here breathing fire any moment now.’
‘Leave her alone!’ shouted one of the other girls. ‘She’ll be getting ready for Robert Baxter. Boy, has he got it bad for our Kate!’
For Robbie, despite Kate’s telling-offs, still occasionally waited behind to see her home from work.
There was laughter and a few teasing comments.
‘He’s that good-looking, too.’
‘With a lovely smile.’
‘And Kate just keeps him dangling. How do you do it, Kate?’
‘I’ll bet she’s never even let him put his hand on her knee!’ yelled Bella Buchanan. ‘If it was me, he wouldnae have to ask twice, but our Kate’s that lady-like, is she no’?’
Kate smiled sweetly. They soon got tired if you didn’t rise to the bait. She drew a comb through her short hair.
She and Pearl, greatly daring, had gone up to Glasgow a few weeks ago and come back with their hair shingled. Pearl had even bought lipstick and powder in Woolworth’s, and they’d applied them in the Ladies’ at Central Station, giggling all the while. Jessie, although she’d accompanied her sisters on the expedition, had declined to participate in either activity, sniffily disdainful of such vanity.
‘You see, Pearl,’ Kate had said, smiling at her youngest sister to take the sting out of her words, ‘Jessie’s the intellectual of the family. She’s above this kind of thing.’
‘The intae-what?’ Pearl had asked, her pretty face such a study in puzzlement that it had been Jessie and Kate’s turn to burst out laughing. When they had recovered, Kate explained.
‘Jessie likes books and studying and discussing ideas, Pearl. She’s not interested in make-up and frivolities like that. Boys, for instance,’ teased Kate.
Pearl tossed her newly cropped head. ‘Oh, really? Well, she may be an intae-whatever it is, but she isnae above fancying boys. Have you seen the way she looks at Andrew Baxter?’
Jessie had gone an immediate deep shade of red, as furious with Pearl as she was embarrassed on her own account. Kate had had to step in to separate her two sisters.
Smiling at the memory, she plonked her cloche hat onto her smooth head and followed the other girls out, running across the yard to the gate. She smiled again, remembering how her father’s mouth had dropped open when he’d seen two of his daughters shorn of their crowning glories.
‘What have you daft lassies done to your bonnie hair?’ he’d asked, his voice so mournful that she and Pearl had taken another fit of the giggles, until he’d asserted his authority and thundered at them to ‘get that muck off your faces!’ Robbie hadn’t liked her with short hair, either.
Well, she liked it. It made her feel grown-up, and modern. And Robbie Baxter didn’t own her, not by a long chalk. She supposed people did think that they were walking out, but going to the pictures together once a week didn’t make them boyfriend and girlfriend, not in Kate’s book. She waited for a Dalmuir-bound tram to clank its way past before crossing the road to her own stop.
She and Robbie went to the pictures together every Monday night - a carefully neutral evening. They went Dutch on the tickets, at her insistence, and although they sometimes walked home together afterwards, enjoying each other’s company, that was all there was to it.
Well ... if she was being honest, she had to admit that on one occasion there had been a bit more to it than that. It had been late summer last year and they had strolled along the river in the twilight, chatting quietly, but had both fallen silent, stuck for something to say, by the time they reached the Renfrew fer
ry. As they walked into the darkness of the close mouth, Robbie had suddenly pulled her to him, his voice rough-edged and his breath warm on her face.
‘Let me kiss you, Kate. Please?’
So she had let him. Just to see what it felt like. To see if it felt any different from that Hogmanay when he had kissed her. She couldn’t say it had been unpleasant, but when his hands had begun, very tentatively, to explore her body, she had pulled back, breathing heavily, panic rising in her throat. Then the leerie had come in on his nightly rounds to light the gas mantles in the close and made a coarse comment, and it had all descended into farce, with Kate running up the stairs and Robbie calling after her in a frantic whisper, so that neither of their families would hear. She had avoided him for a week after that and agreed to resume their weekly trips to the pictures only on the strict understanding that their friendship was to be exactly that and nothing more.
Kate sighed. She knew Robbie wasn’t happy with the situation, but it was all she could manage. She tried to encourage him to go to the dancing on Friday and Saturday nights - there were plenty of halls - in the hopes that he might meet someone nice.
‘I’ve already met someone nice,’ he always said, his mouth set in a mutinous line. Kate sighed again.
As her tram pulled up to the stop she caught a glimpse of herself in her new cloche hat, reflected in the gleaming windows. Not bad, she thought. Not bad. She had succumbed to it last Saturday afternoon in the millinery department of the Co-op. She made most of her own clothes, so the hat had been a big treat.
Granny had taught her to knit when she was a wee girl and she went to night school for dressmaking with some of the girls at work, with Agnes Baxter always on hand if she had a problem with anything. She hoped she was getting a bit better at it and that her skirts and blouses didn’t look too home-made.
Anyway, she thought, jumping off the tram at Kelso Street, her clothes might have cost a fraction of those Marjorie Donaldson was wearing, but they were as fashionable as Kate could make them. And she’d made and paid for them with her own money and her own efforts. Could Marjorie Donaldson beat that? Kate doubted it.
