At last, Anne came in, and sat down heavily on an armchair, her black dress making her pale face look even paler. ‘Your Uncle George and Auntie Jenny are . . . splitting up,’ she said carefully, obviously considering that her daughter was too young to be given any reason.
Renee, however, wouldn’t have it left at that. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Her father’s brother was her favourite uncle, handsome and smartly dressed, with his jet-black hair always slicked back neatly, and often telling her little jokes, but his wife, Auntie Jenny, was a dour, thin-faced woman, with a constant expression of disapproval, no matter where she was or who was there.
Anne seemed to be rather relieved to talk about it, after all. ‘Uncle George has been . . . seeing another woman, and Jenny found out about it. She’s told him to get out of their house, and he’s got nowhere to go, as his . . . friend’s married already.’
‘Oh! Poor Uncle George!’ Renee did not stop to think that it should really be ‘poor Auntie Jenny’, and her mother did not correct her.
‘He said he’d pay thirty shillings if I took him in here, that’s more than the other two. Of course, he’d be here at the weekends, so that would be full board.’
‘There’s no room for another bed in that room – you’re not going to put Jack or Bill away, are you?’
Anne looked at her daughter’s apprehensive face. ‘George doesn’t want to share at all. He wants a room to himself.’
‘Not both of them?’ Renee was alarmed now. ‘Oh, Mummy, you can’t do that. You can’t put both of them away, you’d have less money than you have now.’
‘I wish you’d stop jumping to conclusions, Renee. I’m not putting any of them away. As you said, I need the money.’
‘What’s Uncle George going to do then, if you told him he couldn’t come here?’
Anne hesitated. ‘I . . . er . . . told him he could come. He can have my room, and I’ll move in with you.’
‘That’s not fair!’ The girl’s face showed exactly how indignant she was. ‘I’ve always had a room to myself, ever since I was old enough. I need it to keep my books, and all my . . .’
‘Things have changed, you know that. You’ve grown out of practically all your clothes, and I can’t afford to buy you new ones the way we are just now.’ Anne brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘You’ll just have to throw out some of the rubbish you’ve collected, and make room for me.’
Renee’s expression of resentment suddenly changed to triumph. ‘Uncle George’ll need a bed, and you can’t afford to buy one.’
Her mother sighed. ‘I’m going to put your bed through for him, and take my double bed into the loft for us to sleep on.’ She held up her hand to avoid further protests. ‘He’s moving in on Wednesday, so you’d better stop moaning. It’s all settled.’
Renee knew that Wednesday was the shop half-day, because her father, in those never-to-come-again days, had taken them out in the car every Wednesday afternoon in the summertime. They’d visited Teenie and Jimmy Durno sometimes, and, more frequently, her mother’s sister Bella, at all the different places Uncle Willie was fee’d at. He usually worked on a farm for only the obligatory six months he’d agreed to at the Feeing Market in Aberdeen, and then moved on to another, so the Lawries had been in cottar houses all over Aberdeenshire and Kincardine.
In the winters, they hadn’t gone out in the car on her father’s half-days, because he’d played football in the Wednesday League, teams being made up of shopkeepers and assistants who were unable to take part in the Saturday amateur games.
Swallowing the lump which had come to her throat, she realised that her mother had gone upstairs. The noisy thumps and scrapings suggested that furniture was being moved round in the loft. Renee hadn’t really minded having to shift out of her original room, because she’d often been afraid at nights upstairs on her own, and when her mother took it over, the girl had been comforted by the knowledge that only a wall separated them. But this move was an entirely different thing – an invasion of her territory. She’d have no privacy whatsoever, and her precious sanctuary would be cluttered up with the big bed taking up double the space of the single. Worse still, her mother would probably claim half the chest of drawers and half the wardrobe, both of which had been given to them by sympathetic friends when her father died; Renee kept cardboard boxes in them, full of small interesting items, as well as her clothes.
The room which was to be Uncle George’s had a boxroom off it, with lots of shelves, and a rail along one side for clothes, so he wouldn’t need a wardrobe. It had a jute carpet square and varnished surrounds, while the loft had only two threadbare mats on the natural floorboards. It wasn’t that Renee actually resented her uncle for further upsetting her life, but she did wish that she could have been left in her little dominion on her own, where she could retreat any time she wanted to spend some time by herself.
Bill Scroggie and Jack Thomson switched the beds around on Tuesday night, and Anne made the single bed ready for her new boarder. The small walnut dressing-table with the triple mirrors and the matching three-drawer chest looked rather feminine for a man – they’d been bought originally for Renee – but there was no money for new furniture, and the room was quite attractive. When she joined her daughter in the double bed in the loft, Anne said,
‘That’s it, then. I hope I’ve done the right thing. Seeing somebody once a week’s not the same as seeing them every day, but I don’t think your Uncle George’ll be much bother. Anyway, time’ll tell.’
George Gordon arrived, in the shop van, late on Wednesday afternoon and had unpacked two suitcases of clothes before Bill and Jack came home. They helped him to carry up a comfortable armchair and a small table, which he had bought in a saleroom with the idea of making himself a bed-sitting room. Renee took up some of his other, smaller, belongings. ‘You’ve got a lot of good books, Uncle George,’ she remarked, as she placed them along a shelf in the boxroom. He smiled. ‘I don’t like Westerns or love stories, if that’s what you mean. Have you ever read any of these, or are you still on school stories?’
‘Not so much now, though I still read them if I’m stuck, but I like Little Women, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Anne of Green Gables, and I’ve had Dickens’ Christmas Carol out of the school library.’ She glanced at the row of books. ‘I’ve never read Treasure Island or Tom Brown’s Schooldays.’
‘You don’t know what you’ve been missing, and you’re quite free to borrow any of my books, as long as you look after them.’
‘Thanks, Uncle George. I’m always careful with books.’ Like Bill Scroggie and Jack Thomson, George took his meals in the lounge, now called the dining-room, but he had to go back to the shop after teatime, because it didn’t close until eight o’clock. If he came home immediately after that, he spent his time in his own room, but more often he did not come home until bedtime.
‘He’s likely out with his fancy woman,’ Anne said, unthinking, one evening.
‘What’s a fancy woman?’ Renee had never heard the expression before, and was intrigued by the image it conjured up.
‘It’s a man’s lady-friend when he’s got a wife already.’
‘Was Auntie Jenny not fancy enough for him?’ The girl smiled as she thought that ‘fancy’ was the last word she would have used to describe her sour-faced aunt.
‘What’ll you be wanting to know next?’ Anne sounded exasperated by the questions, and obviously wished that she had guarded her tongue. ‘I’d say Jenny had only herself to blame for the whole thing, though. She nagged about him reading so much, and she couldn’t stand him pottering about with his bits of wirelesses. I suppose that’s why he started going out – to get away from her nagging.’
‘I love to see him making the wirelesses,’ Renee said. ‘He let me watch him one Sunday. Do you know, he makes cases for them as well, and cuts out a sort of sunray pattern with a fretsaw? It’s so
mething like the one we’ve got. Did Daddy make it?’
Anne’s face softened. ‘Yes, he did. Your father was always pottering about, too. He used to make crystal sets to start with. I think there’s still a crystal lying around somewhere. It was funny hearing a voice coming out of it for the first time – that would have been before you were born. The year before – 1922. Wireless was a really marvellous invention, wasn’t it?’
‘Look for the crystal, Mummy, please, and maybe Uncle George can show me how it works.’
Two days later, Anne handed her daughter a small, red circular box, rather like a pillbox. ‘I knew I hadn’t thrown it out, but it had slid down the back of one of the sideboard drawers, and it was just luck I found it.’
‘What is it?’ The girl had forgotten about her previous request, and read the label with interest. ‘Receptite. The perfect wireless crystal. Guaranteed supersensitive.’ She looked up, her eyes dancing with excitement. ‘Oh, great! I hope Uncle George comes straight home from the shop tonight, so he can show me how it works.’
‘Don’t pester him, though.’
Renee lifted the round lid and took off the protective layer of cotton wool to look at the small, grey stone nestling in another layer of soft whiteness. ‘Oh, it just looks like a bit of granite, or something, not like a crystal at all.’ Her disappointment was only momentary. ‘It doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as it does the trick.’
It was almost half past eight when George Gordon took Renee and Jack, who had also expressed an interest, upstairs to perform the miracle. After fiddling about for quite a while, he succeeded, with the aid of some coiled wire and a pencil, in letting them hear a few faint squeaks. ‘It needs to be amplified,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Earphones, or a loudspeaker.’ Going downstairs, just after quarter to ten, Renee wondered why her mother hadn’t called up to her, at half past nine, that it was time she went to bed, but soon discovered the reason. Bill Scroggie, who didn’t usually come home until after everyone else was in bed, was sitting by the fire, looking very excited. He had already told his landlady his good news, but had to repeat it for the benefit of the other three.
‘Lena and me are getting married, and we’re not going to wait, for her mother says we can get a room from her.’
‘Oh, Bill, that’s great!’ Renee’s eyes were shining, although she had not taken the same interest in Bill’s romance since Uncle George had come to live there, and hadn’t realised that he was so serious about Lena Wilson. Jack Thomson held his hand out to his room-mate. ‘Aye, that’s good news. Congratulations, Bill, and when’s the wedding?’
‘We’re going to see about it the morrow in our dinner hour, but it’ll be as soon as we can manage, seeing we’ve got a place to stay. We canna afford a big wedding, just Lena’s father and mother and mine, my brother for best man and Lena’s cousin for bridesmaid.’
‘Make sure you’re the boss, Bill.’ George smiled ruefully as he came forward to shake hands.
Over the next few weeks, Renee and Jack listened eagerly to the wedding plans unfolding, putting forward a suggestion now and then, especially about what Bill should wear.
‘You can get a good suit at the Fifty-Shilling Tailor,’ Jack suggested, one day. ‘One of my mates at the yard got his marriage suit there, and he was very pleased with it.’
‘You’ll need a grey tie.’ Renee had studied an article on wedding etiquette in one of the magazines her mother got from Mrs Fraser, next door. ‘And a white shirt. And, if it’s a navy or dark grey suit you buy, remember you’ll have to wear black shoes.’ This caused great amusement, because Bill always wore tan shoes, no matter which other colours he was wearing. They had often teased him about it.
‘Tan shoes aye seem to fit me better,’ he said, ‘but I’ll get black this time, for I must look smart for my wedding.’
The big day arrived at last, and Anne and Renee, escorted by Jack, went to Rosemount Church to see the small group going in, and to throw confetti at them when they came out, some thirty minutes later. Renee thought that Lena Wilson, now Scroggie, was really beautiful in her dusty pink costume and matching picture hat. Her dark hair had been permanently waved, and curled appealingly round her face, which was absolutely radiant. So, too, was Bill’s – red, perspiring, but radiant – though he seemed embarrassed when his mother aimed a camera at him. His fiery mop had been tamed with brilliantine, making it much darker, but nobody could say he wasn’t smart. His black shoes, uncomfortable though they may be, went very well with his parson-grey fifty-shilling suit; his white shirt, and the grey tie under the Van Heusen collar, were just right for the auspicious occasion. He beamed at his three friends when they scattered their confetti, and Renee reflected, wistfully, that it would be a few years yet before she’d enter the most exciting stage of a girl’s life, when love blossomed and ended in a union like Bill and Lena’s.
‘You’ll be looking for another lodger now, I suppose, Mrs Gordon?’ Jack remarked when they were going home in the bus.
Anne looked thunderstruck. ‘Oh, my! With all the excitement about the wedding, I forgot about that, but, yes, I suppose I’ll have to.’
‘I know it’s not up to me,’ Jack began, cautiously, ‘but one of the lads that works with me was saying he was fed up with his digs, and I said you might be able to take him. But only if it’s OK with you,’ he added.
Anne was glad that she’d be spared the bother of having to find another boarder. ‘You’re the one who’ll be sharing a room with him, so if you think he’ll fit in, it’s OK with me.’
Chapter Four
The newly-weds came to visit quite frequently, and Renee and her mother gradually gathered that their marriage wasn’t all moonlight and roses. Coming on his own one evening, Bill Scroggie confided in them. ‘We’ve been having a few rows, but Lena and me would get on fine if it wasn’t for her mother. She’s aye poking her nose in, and Lena gets wild if I say anything.’
‘It’d be far better if you’d a house of your own,’ Anne said.
‘Oh, aye, but my mother-in-law says there no need for us to look for another place when she’s got plenty of room. She doesn’t want Lena to leave her, that’s what it is. It’s not the money, for Lena’s father’s got a good job – a riveter with Hall, the shipbuilders.’
‘If you found another house without telling her,’ Renee suggested, ‘she couldn’t stop you from moving into it, could she?’
‘I wouldna be too sure about that.’ There was frustration in Bill’s voice. ‘And there would likely be one helluva row. Och, I’m that fed up I feel like emigrating. I saw an advert in the paper last night for a chauffeur/gardener in Canada, and it would suit me fine, if I could get Lena to agree.’
‘Apply for it, Bill.’ Anne sounded decisive. ‘I’m sure she’d go with you if you got the job, and you’ll have to do something to save your marriage.’
‘Aye, right enough. Maybe I will, then.’ Bill looked much happier when he left.
Anne and Renee discussed his situation until George Gordon came home, about a quarter of an hour later, then Anne went to make him a cup of tea and the girl told her uncle what Bill had been saying. ‘I hope he gets his Canadian job. Mother-in-law trouble’s the very devil – nearly as bad as wife trouble,’ he added.
‘If Lena won’t go with him, he could divorce her and go on his own. Maybe he’d meet somebody else over there.’ Renee felt that her solution was only common sense.
‘Getting a divorce isn’t as easy as you think,’ George said sadly. ‘Your Auntie Jenny won’t agree to divorce me, so I’m left high and dry, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘You couldn’t marry your lady friend, anyway.’ Renee blushed, because she had almost said ‘fancy woman’ and, moreover, it was really none of her business.
‘Why can’t I?’
‘I’m sorry, Uncle George. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
/>
He turned serious. ‘No, go on. Why couldn’t I marry her if I was free?’
She looked embarrassed, avoiding his eyes as she said,
‘She’s married already, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, that one? I was finished with her before your Auntie Jenny ever found out, but she wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Oh.’ Renee’s sympathies went out to her uncle. ‘But you’ve found somebody else that’s not married, have you?’
‘I have that, Renee.’ He was smiling now. ‘A very respectable lady I’d like fine to spend the rest of my life with. She’s got her own house, as well, but, as I said, she’s very respectable. It’s a case of marriage or nothing with her. You understand?’
At thirteen, Renee didn’t quite understand the implication of what he was saying, but she thought she’d better not ask. Anyway, she’d other, better things to think about.
The new lodger, who had moved in a week after Bill Scroggie’s wedding, was making her heart flutter every time he looked at her with his smouldering, almost black eyes. Fergus Cooper was a Tyrone Power type, with dark brown curly hair and perfect white teeth. He was nineteen, the same age as Jack, and she was just beginning to recognise what lay behind the long mysterious looks he gave her when her mother was out of the room. His previous landlady, he’d told them, was a terrible nag, a terrible cook and a terrible housewife, and he drew such a vivid picture of his dirty room and the awful food that Renee had been most upset for him. She just couldn’t understand how anyone in her right mind could treat him like that, he was so nice.
Fergus Cooper now occupied all her dreams, waking and sleeping, and the current speculations about the new king, Edward VIII, and the American divorcee, Mrs Simpson, made them all the more colourful. When the king abdicated for the love of his ‘Wallis’, Renee lay in bed beside her mother, making up romantic fantasies in which Fergus renounced an inheritance before he gathered her in his arms and kissed her, then took her away to an exotic island in the Caribbean to live happily ever after.
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