by Millie Gray
For the rest of her life Freda would remember Meg breaking into her thoughts and saying that her dad wished her to know that she should never doubt that when things went awry, he would always be there with her to assist her in getting her life back on track.
Before the sitting finished Meg also said, ‘Freda, like I pointed out to your pals, I am not a fortune-teller. I am a medium, a spiritualist. No one can predict all the paths your life will take. This is because all of us come to crossroads in our lives, and as to which road we will follow . . . well, that’s a choice everyone is free to make. Also, even if you sometimes choose the wrong road you will somehow get back on track. What I am saying is that you have a life before you and that, no matter what, it will always be worth living. A life where there will be more happy times and good achievements than there will be trouble and failure. Just believe that whatever happens and however desperate you feel, you will rise up again and tap dance on the road.’ Meg stopped to look over Freda’s head before she slowly continued, ‘Imagine where you wish to be and, as you are a bit of a dreamer, the road you choose will always be the “Yellow Brick Road”.’ Meg leaned over and patted Freda’s hand before adding, dreamlike, ‘Finally, I have to add that one day you will think that you are about to lose everything, but someone in the spirit world – I think your father – will come back and save that dreadful day for you.’
Freda was now in a world of her own with her treasure trove of memories. She was remembering how her dad, just two months before he died, took her to see a re-release of The Wizard of Oz, her favourite film as a child. Her head was full of sweet memories of how when the wicked witch was screeching and careering about on her broomstick terrifying Dorothy, Freda was cuddling into her dad. She could still smell the reassurance of his manly odour and feel the wonderful sense of security that came with him being there to assuage her fears and encircle her in his strong arms. Those arms that seemed then – and even now, in the stillness of the night – to hold her safe and protect her from the dark.
Meg put an end to Freda’s daydreaming, asking if there was anything else she would like to know. Wistfully, Freda shook her head; she accepted that there was nothing else of any importance that she wished to ask Meg. No, she had been told all she wished to hear so there was nothing left to do except fish in her pocket for the four half-crowns and hand them over to Meg.
In response, Meg’s eyes twinkled and she winked at Freda. ‘So I take it I honestly met your expectations and therefore earned my fee?’ she tittered.
Freda squirmed. How did Meg know about the agreement? Lifting her left hand, she placed it over her right shoulder, where she now knew, thanks to Meg, that her dad would be standing.
Both Meg and Freda then knew that the audience was over and as a more-than-satisfied Freda prepared to leave she smiled at Meg, before saluting her with a courteous nod.
Outside, Molly and Hannah were so full of what Meg had predicted for them that Freda and Robin were afforded the space to quietly contemplate.
Naturally Freda’s thoughts were on her desire to truly believe, which she now did, that every day and night her dad walked with her. That he understood how she missed him so. That he knew how she thought her mum had betrayed him by marrying again – and to someone, in Freda’s estimation, who was so . . . She hunched her shoulders and shivered, as was always her reaction when she thought about Drew Black. She knew he had a reputation as a violent man down at Leith docks and although he hadn’t yet raised his hand to her or her mother, she was deathly afraid. Also, the way he sometimes stared at her when her mother was out at the bingo made her shudder. Dropping her shoulders, she breathed in deeply as a warm, loving glow embraced her.
‘Freda, do you think you could just come back to earth for a minute?’
She jolted. ‘Sorry, Robin. You want to tell me something?’
‘Aye, for two days now I’ve been trying to tell everybody that is interested about how I have my dream job all lined up. Start on Monday next, I do.’
‘Oh, oh, oh,’ gasped Freda as she threw her arms around him and kissed him on both cheeks.
Molly and Hannah exchanged shocked glances at the embrace. Both, without saying a word, acknowledged that although Robin was a nice guy, he didn’t exactly ooze virility like John Wayne – or even Clark Gable. Oh no, he was quite naturally, well, one of the girls!
‘What is it and where is it?’ were Freda’s next remarks.
‘Hairdresser’s apprentice in Stuart’s, would you believe.’
‘Stuart’s!’ she squealed. ‘Are you saying that you’re going to do an apprenticeship in Stuart’s, the ever-so-posh hairdressers up town?’ she added, playfully patting his cheeks.
However, Robin’s remarks had a different effect on Hannah and Molly, who both had to put their hands over their mouths to stifle their giggles.
Pointedly ignoring Hannah and Molly’s reaction, Freda continued, ‘Oh my darling boy, I didn’t know that you wanted to train as a ladies’ hairdresser.’
‘Oh, but I do. And Freda, not only will I be good at it, I will be the very best.’
Drawing up abruptly, Freda bit on her lip before simpering, ‘But what will your dad say? After all he is a coalman, and did he not say that he would get you a start at his yard and that would soon put some muscle on you?’
Robin nodded and shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, Mammy and my wee pal Joey are going to tell him of my success tonight.’
*
When Moira Dalgleish moved into her lower-flatted villa home in the tucked-away colony of Woodbine Terrace she felt elated. After all, it meant that Stevie was finally earning enough to give her and their future children a better life than she had known growing up. She had been a tender, bonnie lassie of just nineteen when she was first courted by the muscular, sensuous, Stevie Dalgleish. When they had married, everybody marked the calendar and bet that Moira would produce her first baby within nine months. Most even suggested that because Stevie was so randy, it would come as no surprise if a blushing Moira were to produce a five-month premature baby of at least ten pounds. Not so. Five long years passed and there was no sign of a baby. In those five years Stevie changed from being a considerate, tender lover to a predatory brute. No one would have believed Moira if she had told them that every night without fail he had to coarsely exercise his conjugal rights in a desperate attempt to make her pregnant. It became such an obsession with him that Moira came to absolutely detest the sexual act. He, in turn, felt that Moira’s frigidity was deliberate, and intended to make him look a ‘Jaffa’. This was the insulting label attached to men whose wives never got pregnant. Moira was at her wits’ end. It was then that her pal Patsy suggested she should demand that her doctor refer her to a gynaecologist for assessment. Moira eagerly agreed, but thought it prudent to forget to tell Stevie.
The very efficient and gentle gynaecologist who examined Moira stated, with no hesitation, that in his expert opinion, Moira was not infertile. In fact, she was extremely healthy in that department. Moira accepted the doctor’s diagnosis but knew that there was no way, if she wished to go on living, that she could face Stevie and tell him that he really was as seedless as a Jaffa orange.
The problem was so difficult to deal with that Moira decided to consult her discrete pal Patsy again. Pursing and sucking in her lips, Patsy sensuously and naughtily suggested that the problem could be put right by a visit to her cousin, who worked in the fairgrounds in Blackpool. Her handsome, virile, thirty-year-old cousin could be persuaded – for a small donation to the Travelling People’s Benevolent Fund, of which he was the sole treasurer and beneficiary – to assist Moira with her problem and thus save her marriage and Stevie’s face.
After her weekend away with Patsy to Blackpool, where for three nights they threw away any inhibitions and just thoroughly enjoyed themselves, Moira felt super. She remembered with relish how she became so mesmerised and intoxicated with excitement that she just joined in all the racy fun that was on offer – especiall
y on the helter-skelter, which Patsy’s cousin owned and supervised. Oh yes, she really got her money’s worth by having at least two goes every night on that wild and exhilarating contraption.
She was back at the house at seven on the Monday night and before she could even get her coat off, Stevie dragged her into the bedroom. Four weeks later she put a stop to the nightly humiliation, her reason being that she was pregnant and did not wish to have a miscarriage because of overindulgence. Stevie immediately agreed and became the loving, considerate man that she had married. He was so eager to please her that he would have done double somersaults whilst spitting out threepenny bits.
It was true to say that Moira enjoyed her pregnancy. She really did appreciate Stevie’s devotion and felt so pleased that he could at last boast that he had put her, his ever-faithful wife, in the family way. That was something that did not matter to her but was so important to Stevie, who worked in the macho coal yard. Naturally, she was very glad to have sacrificed her virtue to enable Stevie to keep face.
Her labour was easy, and when a midwife laid her newborn son in her arms and she looked down at his delicate features, tears surfaced as she became quite overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude and achievement.
It went without saying that Stevie wished at least a hat-trick. Moira, on the other hand, did not wish to become like his beer, which he had to have every night or he wasn’t satisfied. To add to that, he got it into his head that if he took her away on a weekend to Ayr during race week, that might be enough to get her pregnant again – after all, hadn’t going to Blackpool worked in relaxing her? Unfortunately, watching horses, however sleek and swift, did nothing for Moira. Driven to extremes, Stevie asked Patsy if she would take Moira on another weekend break to Blackpool, to see the Illuminations. Stevie himself would not go. He just couldn’t see how people could be fascinated and inspired by electric lights flashing on and off, even if they were in all sorts of designs and colours of the rainbow. However, if looking at these lights somehow lit a spark in Moira, then he was willing to pay for her and Patsy to go down there for the weekend. He would then spend his time in the boozer with his pals, reserving his energies for what he had to do when Moira got home.
‘Remember,’ he said to Patsy before she boarded the bus after Moira, ‘you make sure that Moira has a couple of goes on the helter-skelter.’
Patsy just looked at him and grinned before quipping, ‘I sure will, and I might even have a go myself!’
Stevie had shrugged before replying, ‘You can laugh, but whenever I ask her why she is not preggers again she replies, “Well, that’s because I haven’t been on the helter-skelter.”’
Unfortunately, Moira and Patsy arrived in Blackpool to discover that the helter-skelter was out of order. Patsy’s cousin suggested that they should try the twice as expensive Jungle Ride – his latest acquisition. He even advised that if two spins didn’t meet Moira’s expectations, he would give her another whirl free of charge. The deal was then struck, not by the shaking of hands, but a sly wink from him and a long sigh from Moira. Four weeks after they returned from Blackpool – where Moira had insisted on having a daily pirouette on the Jungle Ride – she was elated. It had worked again and she was pregnant. Eight months later she gave birth to the most beautiful daughter, who set Stevie’s heart a-spinning from the moment he set eyes on her.
There were no more trips to Blackpool, but Moira didn’t mind and nor did Stevie. Patsy suggested to Moira that she could go just once more at a discounted rate, as her cousin was offering, but Moira declined. She was not like Patsy and when she had to do things that were not quite . . . well, to be truthful, things that would seem shocking to her pals in the Women’s Guild, she thought it was time to start keeping to her marriage vows. She did, however, acknowledge that the two trips to Blackpool were necessary and had been, on her part, a sacrifice. She had two beautiful children, but that was all she was prepared to sin for. The temporary laying-down of her religious principles and moral standards had been necessary because Stevie had to keep face in the coal yard. She really did regret that she was unlike her pal, Catholic Patsy, who could confess all, then say four Hail Marys, and all was not only forgiven but also forgotten. That said, if Moira was being honest, did she really wish to forget every single minute of her – completely obligatory – dalliance? Probably not. She giggled every time she thought of it, becoming engulfed in a delightful quiver.
Autumn, their delightful little girl, was everything that Stevie wished for in a daughter. She was beautiful, vivacious, cute, and very, very clever– just like her father, or so he thought. As for Robin . . . well, Stevie lived in the hope that adolescence would see Robin develop some masculine traits.
Stevie’s concerns about Robin not being the macho kind of son he wished for became an obsession. It put a stress upon his relationship with Moira. Moira felt that she was more than responsible for Robin being gentle, artistic and slightly effeminate. She also found it irritating and conscience-pricking that Stevie was forever claiming that if Robin had not been born in the house, he would have sworn that someone had switched bairns on him.
The constant attacks on Robin and his unwillingness to follow in his dad’s footsteps were the start of an irreparable rift between Moira and Stevie. They did still speak to each other, until Stevie, who really only wished to get Robin to ‘soldier with him’, suggested to Robin that he might like to attend a Hibs football match with his old man. Moira couldn’t believe it when Robin said, ‘That’s very good of you to ask me, Dad, but going to Easter Road would bore me to tears.’
Stevie’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh my God,’ he spluttered, before grabbing hold of Robin and birling him around to face him, ‘don’t tell me that in addition to you being’ – Stevie swallowed hard – ‘a . . . a . . . well, you know what you are, you are also a bloody Heart of Midlothian supporter?’
‘Apologise!’ Moira screamed. ‘This is the end. What worse insult could you hurl at Robin than to claim that—?’
‘But he blooming well is . . .’
Before either Moira or Stevie could say anything further, Joey started to chirp and flutter around his cage.
‘No wonder you are disgusted,’ Moira said to the budgie before running her fingers over his cage.
‘Aye, and I am too, Joey,’ Stevie butted in.
From then on Moira and Stevie only spoke to one another through the bird.
On the evening following Robin’s appointment with Meg Sutherland the mystic, Moira was preparing for Stevie’s return home. She said to Joey, ‘It will be some to-do tonight, Joey. Aye, there is no point in not taking the bull by the horns and telling my beloved husband that . . .’
The door opened. Moira turned to find Stevie, covered in coal dust and looking at the bird’s cage. ‘What has she got to tell me, Joey? And if it is about a bull then it cannae be about her weakling son.’
‘Joey, you tell him it’s about Robin leaving school next week and what he would like to work at.’
‘Tell the Queen Mother, Joey, that it’s all sorted out, as I’ve got him – against my better judgement – a start beside me in the coal yard on Lindsay Road.’
‘Am I hearing right, Joey?’
The bird chirped twice as if to say, ‘Yes’.
Moira’s cackle resonated off the walls. ‘He’s finally flipped it! Mind you, Joey, I always knew one day that he would. I mean how on earth does he expect our artistic Robin to carry hundredweight bags of coal up four flights of stairs?’
‘Flipped it, Joey? That’ll be the day. But tell her that I’ve finally come to my senses and from this day on Robin will be known as Rab the Coalman.’
Running her fingers over Joey’s cage Moira simpered, ‘Now Joey, my bonnie wee budgie, you tell him that our Robin, yours and mine, will not be carrying any coal – not even from our outside bunker – because my clever laddie has gone and got himself an apprenticeship.’
Stevie was so surprised that he nearly spoke to Moira directly. ‘Oh, oh
, oh, so he’s got himself a start in Ferranti’s? Oh good, blooming good, because that will at least save my face.’
Joey chirped twice again before turning his back on both Stevie and Moira.
Undeterred, jubilant Moira continued, ‘Joey, you tell Tarzan, who thinks that Robin is going into electronics, that he’s got it wrong again and that our creative, sensitive laddie . . . oh Joey, come on now, son, turn around and tell him that our Robin’s going up town to train as a hairdresser!’
Spluttering, Stevie yelled, ‘Joey, is she saying that he’s going to work in that Lorimer’s, the uptown barbers on South St Andrew’s Street? Ye ken, where it costs you a shilling mair than Leith’s Joe Galletta’s for a short back and sides!’
The bird chirped once to indicate that he had had enough. Fluttering his wings, he dropped down to the bottom of the cage. He instinctively buried his head under his right wing, as though he understood what was about to happen.
‘Barber!’ exclaimed Moira, ‘Joey, you and I both know that our boy is not going to work in a smelly old hovel of a barber’s shop. Tell him, Joey – go on, tell him, make my day and tell him – that our Robin is going to be a ladies’ hairdresser. An apprenticeship he has won in high society: Stuart’s prestigious hairdressing salon. You know, them that keeps the Royal tresses in order when they are in town.’
‘Oh,’ Stevie uttered with a groan, ‘please God no. A ladies’ hairdresser. Can’t you see, Joey, it will mean me having to throw in the towel and admit that my son is . . . is . . . a nancy boy.’ Stevie was now trying to eat his fist as he continued, ‘And Joey, it’s no’ all his mother’s fault. Naw, naw, I am to blame tae. Och aye, you see, when she insisted on calling him Robin and no Rab I should have put my foot down. I mean, Joey, with the poor wee laddie being given a name like Robin, it’s nae wonder he thinks he’s a bird!’
