On the walk to her home, the girl reflected that her grandparents were dressed almost the same as Auntie Teenie and Uncle Jimmy had been when they went to church, even to the bowler hat perched on Granda’s grey head, and that they looked every bit as uncomfortable. Her amusement disappeared as they neared the house, to be replaced by apprehension about what lay in front of her.
When they went inside, she cheered up when she saw her cousin, Peggy, with Auntie Jenny and Uncle George. The two girls, only a few weeks apart in age, were told to sit down and not make a nuisance of themselves, but Renee remembered that there was a pile of Children’s Newspapers in the lounge, where she had left them before setting off for Gowanbrae several weeks before. That would give them something to do, seeing they weren’t allowed out.
Taking time to tell Peggy what she was going to do, she ran into the other room and was brought up short by the sight of the coffin. Seeing her father’s porcelain face, eyes closed in unnatural sleep, she forgot her reason for being there, and stood, horrified, gazing down at the waxen hands lying crossed on the white silk until she burst into choking sobs and dashed back to the living room. Maggie caught the full impact of the hurtling figure. ‘Oh, lassie, ye didna go through there, did ye?’ She enveloped the shivering girl in her comforting arms. ‘It’s a’ right! It’s a’ right! Granny’s got ye.’ It was Renee’s first sight of a corpse, and she vowed to herself that she would never, ever, look at another one, come what may. She sat down beside Peggy on the floor, in the corner between the sideboard and the window wall, and huddled closely against her in an effort to shift the icy coldness which seemed to have taken possession of her.
Her terror transmitted itself to her cousin, and they sat in silence, not understanding what had happened, or even what was happening now, but realising that all the people who were arriving had not come on a normal visit.
When the minister came, to conduct a short service over the coffin, the mourners went through to the lounge, but the two girls remained where they were, too scared to move, and no one remembered about them.
The service over, all the men went out – to follow the hearse to the cemetery, Granny told them – and they were allowed to have a glass of milk and something to eat.
The women scurried around, putting sandwiches and biscuits on cakestands and setting out cups, saucers and plates on the table, with both its extensions pulled out. Kettles were placed on the cooker, and teapots were rinsed out with boiling water before tea was spooned into them and they were filled to the brim.
Renee noticed that they were using Granny’s kettle and teapot, as well as her mother’s, and probably the other ones belonged to Mrs Fraser. They were going to need them, if they were going to fill all the cups they’d laid out.
The men returned, and the room was filled with people, sitting, standing, milling about. It was all too much for the girl, as she and Peggy sat not making a nuisance of themselves, and tears welled up in her eyes. She hadn’t really understood when they told her, last Monday, that her father was dead, but finding him lying in his coffin like that had shocked her out of any hopes she’d nursed of ever seeing him again. She knew now what death meant.
The hushed voices of the grown-ups as they went over, one after the other, to speak to her black-clad mother, made her flesh creep, and she prayed that her mother would never die. She could never look at another dead body, no matter whose it was, and the word corpse was the most revolting she’d ever heard.
When she stopped living, she’d be a corpse herself, of course, but she wouldn’t have to look at it. All the relatives would gaze on her, and say how natural she looked, like they’d said today about her father, and she’d know nothing about it. A hysterical giggle rose in her throat at her senseless thoughts, and she clutched Peggy’s hand tightly.
In ones and twos, the people departed at last, until only Granny and Granda, Auntie Jenny and Uncle George, and Peggy were left. The adults sat down to relax and recover over another cup of tea, although Granda and Uncle George took a glass of whisky first, and it was half an hour later before they were all gone, and Renee and her mother were completely alone.
Anne Gordon sank down on the settee beside her daughter, her mousey hair damp with nervous perspiration. ‘I’m sorry, Renee. I haven’t had time to think about you, or notice what you were doing.’
‘I was thinking about last Sunday night, when Daddy switched off the lights, remember?’
A faint smile lifted the corners of Anne’s mouth. ‘You came shooting out of the bathroom like a scared rabbit.’
‘I wasn’t scared,’ Renee protested. ‘But I told Daddy I hated him for doing it, and now he’s dead and I can’t let him know I didn’t mean it.’
After a slight pause, Anne said, in a choked voice, ‘He knows, don’t worry. We all say things we don’t mean at times.’
She studied the girl then – her daughter who would be ten years old in a few days. The shoulder-length fair hair was curling up at the ends, the bright blue eyes were clouded with remorse and doubt, the sturdy legs were encased in knee-high socks and the blouse and gym-tunic were what had been laid out for her on Monday morning to go to school.
Renee was so like her father that Anne’s heart constricted in agony, and she was forced to avert her head, but, after a few minutes, she turned back to the girl. ‘Oh, God, Renee,’ she whispered sadly, ‘I hope you never have to go through anything like this.’
Not knowing how to reply, Renee took her mother’s hand, and they sat in silence for a long time. At last, Anne stood up.
‘Help me to lay past the dishes, Renee. There’s only you and me now, so we’ll have to help each other as much as we can.’ The girl had a few private weeps when she recalled her last angry words to her father, but Anne remained dry-eyed, as she had been since the accident, until after the minister called, the next forenoon. The Reverend Graham was an old man, and had made hundreds of visits to the bereaved, but he could offer no explanation when Anne burst out, ‘Why does God let things like that happen? My Jim was a good man. He didn’t drink, or smoke, or swear, and we went to church every Sunday. Why was he taken from me?’
Looking slightly uncomfortable, the minister laid his hand over hers. ‘It is not given to us to understand, my dear. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and only the good are called to the Kingdom of Heaven.’
Anne gave up. How could she argue with that? She felt cheated, betrayed, but it was only after the man left that she found blessed relief in tears, while Renee stood by helplessly. She had never seen her mother weeping before, and the experience was not pleasant.
‘It was best for her to let her grief oot, lassie,’ Granny said that afternoon, when the girl told her about it. ‘She needed to ha’e a good greet, an’ she’ll feel the better for it. But ye’ll ha’e to try to keep her spirits up, though ye’ll need to be content wi’ a lot less than ye’ve been gettin’ up to now.’ Maggie put her arm round the girl, to let her know she wasn’t criticising her in any way, and Renee blinked away her tears as they joined her mother in the living room. She vaguely understood from overheard conversations between Granny and Granda, Uncle George and Anne on Sunday afternoon, that her life was going to be different in future. She had no father to provide for her now, and all his savings had gone to pay the deposit on this house in Cattofield, a fairly new suburb of Aberdeen, where they’d moved only eight months ago. And something called a mortgage had to be paid every month, otherwise they wouldn’t even have a roof over their heads.
Renee also gathered that her mother would not receive a widow’s pension, because Jim Gordon, in partnership with his brother George in a small butcher shop, had not paid insurance stamps. Apparently it wasn’t compulsory for a self-employed man to contribute, and he had never considered the possibility that he could die so young.
Uncle George was going to carry on the shop with the help of Frank Leslie, the young man he’d emp
loyed after Renee’s father was killed last Monday. He agreed to make Anne a small allowance, but he warned her that it wouldn’t be much, after the wages were paid, and all the other expenses.
Maggie McIntosh pursed her lips when she heard this.
‘I doubt ye’ll ha’e to tak’ a job, Annie.’
‘I’m not trained for anything.’ Anne looked rueful. ‘And a skivvy’s wages wouldn’t pay the mortgage and the rates and everything else.’
Anne McIntosh had been fortunate in marrying a man like Jim Gordon, everyone had said at the time, with her just being in service and him his own boss, but it was hard to be left like this. ‘Oh,’ she groaned, suddenly. ‘Why did it have to be a butcher? If it had been another kind of shop, I could have served behind the counter, but I don’t know anything about cuts of meat, or making sausages and potted head.’
‘My father used to say he was a flesher and poulterer, not a butcher,’ George Gordon remarked. ‘That’s what’s above the door.’
Maggie fixed him with a reprimanding glare as she tutted with disapproval at his facetiousness, and he looked suitably chastened, so she turned her attention on her daughter again.
‘Ye’ve a grand hoose, Annie, so ye could maybe tak’ in lodgers. Ye wouldna mak’ muckle profit aff them, but it would surely see ye an’ yer bairn fed and clad, an’ pay for the electric an’ gas, as weel as yer mortgage an’ rates.’
Anne looked horrified. ‘Jim wouldn’t have wanted his house used for taking in lodgers, Mother.’
‘Maybe no’, m’ dear, but he shoulda looked ahead an’ ta’en oot an insurance on his life, so’s nae to leave ye penniless.’
‘That wasn’t Jim’s fault. He did speak about it, but I thought we’d have a hard enough time paying the building society for the sixteen years without taking on any more commitments.’
Shaking her head until a few long dark strands, and one or two silver, struggled loose from the coil at the back, Maggie said, rather impatiently, ‘An’ jist look far it’s got ye. Lodgers are yer only hope, as far as I can see.’
‘I suppose so.’ Anne’s sigh was prolonged and noisy. ‘But how do I go about getting them?’
‘Tak’ oot an advert in the paper, or answer ane, if ye like. There’s aye men needin’ lodgin’s.’
When her relatives left, Anne felt easier in her mind, and sat down to look through Saturday’s Evening Express, where she did find that several men were seeking board and lodgings.
‘I could take two, I suppose,’ she remarked to Renee, ‘but I’d better let them share the downstairs bedroom.’
‘Where will you sleep, then?’
‘I can take your room, and we’ll move you into the loft. Your father lined it with plywood to use as a dark room for his photography, so maybe Granda’ll paper it for you.’
The girl felt quite excited at the prospect of the change round, especially when she thought that there would be strangers in the house. ‘How much will you charge them?’ She was being more realistic than her mother, or perhaps she was not quite old enough to be affected by the tragedy of the situation. Anne looked bewildered. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t know how much lodgers usually pay.’
‘There’s a bit in here about accommodation vacant as well.’ Renee was looking at the newspaper again. ‘Some of them say one pound per week, so if you took two, you’d get two pounds. How much do you need for the mortgage?’
‘It’s four pounds a month, that’s one pound a week.’ Anne frowned in concentration. ‘With two pounds from the lodgers, and whatever I get from the shop, I might just be able to keep things going. It’ll be a struggle, though, with all the other things to pay.’
‘I’m sure you’ll manage.’ Renee helped her mother to draft a letter, then Anne wrote to the six of the box numbers which seemed to be most suitable. Now that she had burned her boats, she would have to wait patiently for replies, but in the meantime, she had to organise extra beds and bedding, and rearrange the present sleeping quarters. Maggie gave her an old single bed she didn’t need, which Granda and Uncle George transported in the shop van, and they repeated the operation with another bed, which one of Jim Gordon’s friends offered to Anne. She asked them to move her double bed to Renee’s upstairs room, and to shift the girl’s single bed into the loft, which Granda had covered with flowery wallpaper to make it more pleasant as a bedroom for the girl.
‘It’ll be oor birthday present for Renee,’ he remarked, refusing to take the money Anne wanted to give him to pay for the wallpaper, paste and paint. Maggie and some of her friends donated sheets, blankets and bedspreads, as well as pillows and pillowcases, and Anne rushed about making the downstairs room presentable.
In a few days, she received six letters in answer to hers, and sat down with Renee to see which of the writers, if any, would fit into her household. Some of the notes were quite badly written, but two were worded politely and thoughtfully, so they were the obvious choices.
One was from a William Scroggie, who said he was a gardener in Huntly and had been offered a job with a firm of horticulturists in Aberdeen. He would be going home every weekend, and was twenty-three years old.
‘He seems a friendly sort of person, from the way he’s written.’ Anne laid his letter to one side.
‘That’s one, then,’ Renee smiled. ‘What about this Jack Thomson from Peterhead?’
‘Well . . . he’s very young, just newly sixteen, he says, but he does sound quite nice. He’s starting an apprenticeship with an engineering company, though he doesn’t say which one, so that’s steady work . . . and he’ll go home at weekends, too. Yes, I think I’ll settle on them.’
Anne wrote replies to each letter she had received, four saying that she regretted that her vacancies had been filled, and two stating her terms and hoping that the boys would find her home comfortable. Renee could hardly wait, now, for the lodgers to arrive, because they would be sure to brighten up her existence, and, hopefully, her mother’s. Anything could happen with two young men in the house.
Chapter Three
When the boarders made their appearance, Anne Gordon knew she’d chosen well. Bill Scroggie, from Huntly, had a mop of fiery red hair, belying his quiet, serious disposition. He was about five feet eight, and quite stocky, but very polite and friendly. Jack Thomson, from Peterhead, was almost six feet, very slim, and his sandy hair stood up in a quiff at the front. He, too, was inclined to be quiet, especially at first, but he had a strong sense of humour, and his whole face lit up when he smiled, tiny dimples appearing at the edges of his mouth.
They settled in quickly, and Renee soon came to regard them as part of the family, but Anne worried in case she was charging them too much, seeing they went home at weekends. When she mentioned this to Bill, he smiled. ‘No, Mrs Gordon, we’re very happy about it. There’s lads paying the same and sleeping four to a room in a tenement.’
Renee avidly followed the course of Bill Scroggie’s romance with Lena Wilson, and often wished she was old enough to go to the Old Time Dancing in Gray Street, which was where he’d met his girlfriend.
‘Why don’t you go out dancing?’ she asked Jack one evening. He was sitting, as usual, listening to the wireless in the living room.
‘I can’t afford it, not on my wages.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’ Even though Jack smiled to let her see she hadn’t annoyed him, Renee was annoyed at herself. She should have remembered that her mother had told her he only got five shillings a week, and his widowed mother had to take in dressmaking to pay for his lodgings. He went home every week to see her, so he had little money left to spend on enjoyment, but he never complained and sometimes played Snakes and Ladders, or Ludo, with the schoolgirl when she finished her homework, which passed the time quite pleasantly for both of them.
When Renee was eleven, and attending intermediate school, she started weaving dreams about Jack, now sevente
en, waiting for her until she was old enough to be his girlfriend. By that time, of course, he’d be a time-served engineer and making a decent living wage, she realised, with a talent for finance picked up from listening to the discussions her mother had with her relatives.
Every Sunday, George Gordon drove up in the Erskine, which he’d bought for five pounds after his brother Jim died, to give Anne her share of the profits, but he never asked her how she was coping. As it happened, she’d always managed to meet the monthly mortgage, although it was very difficult sometimes, with all her other expenses, and providing meals for four. She’d to scrimp and cut corners, mending sheets and clothes instead of buying new, as she would once have done.
Sometimes Peggy came with her father, and Renee was glad of her cousin’s company to let her be free of the boring adult conversation. She felt jealous of Peggy’s smart new dresses and skirts now and then, but she never mentioned this to her mother.
Maggie and Peter McIntosh came every Friday evening, to make sure that their daughter and her child were not going short of anything. The difference between them and Uncle George, of course, was that they would have given Anne their last penny if they had suspected she was in need of it. Maggie’s legs were beginning to trouble her, and Anne often felt ashamed that they always came to see her, instead of the other way round, but with all the work she had to do, the cleaning, cooking, patching, and letting down Renee’s clothes, she seemed to be at it until bedtime every night. Peter, too, was looking older. He would be retiring from his work as a monumental mason shortly, and arthritis had set in to his hands. His back was bowed now and his face was lined with deep furrows, but his white hair was still bushy, like his moustache and eyebrows, though they were not so white, more a gingery grey.
One Sunday, about a year and a half after their circumstances had so dramatically changed, Renee realised that her mother had been standing talking to Uncle George at the door for nearly half an hour, and wondered what they could find to talk about after spending all afternoon in discussion.
Monday Girl Page 2
