David's Sisters

by Forsyth, Moira;

  ‘Your dad likes him a richt though?’

  ‘He’s a good boss,’ his father had said. ‘Lets you get on with the job, doesn’t interfere. And he’s generous.’

  ‘They’re only interested in making money,’ David said. ‘That’s all the whole business is for.’

  ‘Well, if it comes till’t,’ Stanley confessed, ‘it’s all that bothers most folk.’

  ‘So that’s it, then,’ David mocked. ‘You’re going to be a joiner and live in Aberdeenshire all your life.’ He warmed to his picture of Stanley’s future. ‘Get married to Irene, have two kids, maybe your son will be a joiner too, right?’ Stanley looked at the ground, not answering, so David went on: ‘And you’ll live in a council house, go to Majorca for your holidays, go down the pub on Friday night, read the Press and Journal, but never any books – and vote Conservative.’

  ‘I will not vote bloody Conservative!’

  David grinned. ‘Knew that you would get you. Vote Labour then.’ He nudged Stanley. ‘But you see what I mean? Your life will stay the same, you won’t go round the world, make any real difference, change anything.’

  ‘And you’re goin to?’ Stanley turned, challenging him. ‘You’re goin to change the world? David Cairns, Prime Minister.’ He shoved David so hard he slid off the gate. David shoved back, and somehow, not knowing how it had happened, they were wrestling on the ground in a blind and breathless struggle of pulled collars and fists and kicks.

  ‘Here! Fit the bloody hell’s goin on here? Get tae yer feet, the pair of ye!’

  It was Stanley’s father, leaning out of his van. The boys separated slowly and stood up, looking at each other. David’s white school shirt and dark trousers were streaked brown and grey, and one shirt sleeve was torn at the shoulder seam. Stanley, in work jeans and jersey, did not look so bad.

  Jimmy Robertson got out of his van. ‘Davy Cairns, fit wey are you nae at the school?’

  So much for no one knowing or noticing. David groaned. But Jimmy did not seem interested in the answer.

  ‘Get in the van,’ he said.

  Stanley, climbing in the back with the tools, let David sit beside his father. They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘A fine mess you’re in. Nae muckle ees takin ee back to the school, eh?’

  ‘No. But I left my bag in the ditch at the side of the road. Near the phone box.’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘I’d better … collect it.’ Silence. But Stanley’s father made for the Inverurie road and stopped by the call box, so that David could retrieve his bag.

  ‘I’ve got a job the other side of Pitcairn,’ he said as David got back in the van. ‘I’ll drop you at the end of your road.’

  ‘Thanks,’ David muttered.

  ‘So you’ve exams comin up syne?’

  ‘Next month.’

  ‘Then you’ll be away to the college?’

  He knows that, thought David irritably. He was worried now. Was Jimmy going to tell his parents?

  ‘He’d rather get a job,’ Stanley put in, from the rear of the van.

  ‘Oh aye. Fit kinda job would ye like?’

  ‘Prime—’ Stanley began, then thought better of it.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being out and about, like you,’ David said, inspired. ‘I hate sitting in school, I don’t want to be stuck in a library or something.’

  ‘You’re good wi your hands, is that it?’

  ‘Yes,’ David said, having no idea really.

  ‘I’ve a mate, Ronnie Farquhar, over at Kintore. He’ll be looking for a likely lad, come the autumn.’

  ‘Is he a joiner as well?’

  ‘Plumber. Plumbing and heating.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You think about it. Very respectable trade. No book learnin required.’

  Was Jimmy making fun of him?

  ‘No, he disna want to be a plumber,’ Stanley put in, barely able to keep the laugh from his voice. ‘He’s goin to change the world.’

  But all his father said was, ‘Well, there’s plenty needs changing.’

  They stopped at the end of the road to Pitcairn House. David got out with his bag. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘And I’ll think about … what you said.’

  Why not, he thought, shouldering his bag and setting off up the road. Better than nothing. Better than school. Learn a trade. Then, with a bit of cash in hand, take a year out, go to Europe. Canada, maybe.

  On either side, the fields lay baking in the first hot day of the year. Sunlight flashed through the trees. The verges were lined with whin and broom, the broom still black, but the whin brilliant yellow, coconut-scenting the air. On such a day, anything seemed possible.

  When he reached the stone pillars at the end of his driveway, he hesitated. His father would be at work, his mother – what? What did his mother do, now they were all grown up – housework? But Ruby still came to help with that, though only twice a week now. It was years since the troops of little girls had come for dancing lessons on Saturdays. The garden was his father’s really, though she filled tubs with geraniums in the summer, and harvested the vegetables.

  Perhaps she would be out – he knew she did some sort of voluntary work at the hospital. He walked slowly round the side of the house. As he turned the corner, he saw his mother. She was standing on the drying green, a basket at her feet, hanging out washing. She lifted a sheet from the basket and flipped it neatly over the line, spreading it along, fixing the pegs. All her movements were economical, graceful. Not moving, holding his breath, David watched her. She pegged out a row of towels and pillow cases on the other half of the line. Then she bent to pick up the basket, but halfway changed her mind. She straightened again, and raised her arms smoothly so that they stretched out on either side. She wore a short-sleeved blouse, white with a blue pattern, and grey slacks. Lifting one arched foot to her knee, she rose on the ball of the other one. One arm swept up over her head, and then she moved. A sweeping round of arms, a turn of the body, a step, a leap, and she was off down the garden in a series of wide, springing movements. By the lilac trees she stopped, and her body sagged, the arms coming down. She turned. David flung himself back round the side of the house, so that she would not see him.

  When she held her Saturday ballet classes, they had had to keep out of the way, and behave. He had cleared off with Stanley, roaming the fields, or down the woods, till dinner-time. Now he leaned against the side of the house, breathing hard. He did not think he had ever seen his mother dance like that. There were things you did not know about your parents, secret things in the past, hidden thoughts. Was his mother sorry she had given up dancing, sorry she had given it up to be married and have children? The extraordinary novelty of this idea shook him, left him uncertain, afraid, and yet exhilarated. He realised he was proud of his mother, embarrassed and surprised, but proud. She had looked so young, and had moved like someone used all her life to dancing like this, to performance.

  David hoisted his bag again, and went off to stay in the woods until it was time for him to be home from school.

  After that, it was easy. He learned that if you use Basildon Bond, and write a very short note with no spelling mistakes, you can explain your absences very satisfactorily. No one checks up, if they think you have been ill. His Aunt Alice used to get migraines, which kept her in bed for at least a day. She did not get them now, but he remembered his mother saying she had ‘struggled’ with them, and that they had started long ago when she was seventeen. He decided that was what he would have too. He just had to be quiet in class the day after, and put his head in his hands now and again.

  He stayed away more and more. During exams, it was easy to be missing. He sat his Highers as he was supposed to; he went along and opened his paper when everyone else did, sat listening to the soft scraping of pens, shuffles, sighs, and the quiet tread of the invigilators, pacing between rows. He wrote something, answered the questions, he supposed. Sometimes he sat for a long time staring at the wooden floor, growing
familiar with the grain of the boards, the knot just by one leg of his desk.

  ‘How did it go?’ they asked. ‘How did you get on?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘it was OK.’

  His Aunt Alice had been in hospital for a minor operation. She came out to stay at Pitcairn for a few days. It was odd seeing her without Mamie, but Mamie had gone to the funeral of Uncle Tom’s mother who had died at the great age of ninety-five, and she was staying on to visit some of her old friends in Northumberland. Alice did not seem ill. She sat in the garden reading, or helped his father tidy the borders or tie up the peas. Marion was about to sit her final exams, and spent every evening in her bedroom, working. Eleanor had first-year exams, and was studying too. The house was full of quiet industry.

  By the time Highers were over, David had got out of the way of going to school. Often, he did not even get on the school bus, but waited till it had passed, then went back along the lane to the woods. Sometimes, Martin Cleland came with him. Martin was the doctor’s son, who was expected to get As in his Highers, and do medicine at Aberdeen. He too had had enough of school. He was a follower, as Stanley had been when they were eight, but he was not fearless like Stanley, and worried about being caught. So David was mostly on his own. He stayed in the woods and read, or fell asleep. He was often very bored, but he had somehow got himself into this, and there did not seem to be any way to stop. The weather went on being hot and bright. If he had not worked at the Mains every weekend, if he had not anyway a brownish skin, he might have looked mysteriously tanned for someone still at school every day. Even so, he was bound to be found out.

  One day Stanley came to find him. His father was on the booze again, he said. It would be next week before he was working again.

  ‘I dinna ken why you’re hidin awa in the woodies,’ Stanley said. Tit’s the point? Just tell them you’re leavin school.’

  ‘I’m supposed to stay another year.’

  ‘Fit wey?’

  ‘Well, I must’ve failed all these Highers for a start. So I’ll have to resit them, I suppose.’

  ‘You fancy doing that, then?’

  At this idea, at the thought of staying another year in school, a great wave of weariness and nausea swept over David.

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, I’m leaving.’

  ‘Go on then. Just tell them.’

  ‘I’m not going to be a plumber either, Stan,’ David warned.

  Stanley laughed. ‘It’s OK, I never thocht you were. Canna see you fittin lavvy pans, nae if you’re goin to be the Prime Minister.’

  They both laughed, thinking of the day they had rolled on the ground, fighting because David was going to change the world, and Stanley had mocked.

  ‘Anyway,’ David said, ‘what about you?’

  ‘Ach.’ Stanley shrugged. ‘As lang’s the auld man keeps off the drink, we’re OK.’

  ‘You don’t want to stay here either, do you?’

  ‘Nae much choice now.’

  ‘You have, you could—’

  ‘No.’

  At this change in tone, David looked up. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Irene’s up the stick.’

  David did not understand. Then he did. ‘Christ, that’s a bit of a problem.’

  ‘You’re nae kiddin. She hasna telt her ma yet, but fan she does—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Weddin bells for Stan.’

  ‘You’re not eighteen yet, you can’t get married.’

  ‘Try tellin that to Irene’s ma.’

  They spent the morning together, then Stanley went home to rouse his father. David sat on in the wood for a while. It was still hot, the air oppressive with clouds massing, a threat of thunder. He got to his feet. Home, he thought. I’m going to tell them tonight. I’m leaving school.

  As he came round the side of the house this time, he heard voices: his mother and Alice. Mostly Alice, which was unusual. Then he sensed that this was not just a conversation. The voices were quiet and controlled, but it was an argument. A quarrel. He hesitated, then moved round the corner. They were not there. He realised they had just gone indoors, and he followed. From the edge of the yard, he could see them through the kitchen window, standing by the table, facing each other. They did not hear him, did not turn in his direction. It was like a dream: everything was moving slowly, he was in a bubble of time, space, their voices did not sound as they usually did.

  Years later, he was to ask himself why he had been so slow to understand, but the things they were saying made no sense. They were arguing about someone they called ‘the boy’. But he was the boy – who else could it be?

  Alice said, ‘He could bide with us when he’s at the college.’ She leaned forward, emphatic. ‘It’s time he knew, high time.’

  ‘It would only do him harm, the way he is just now.’ His mother sat down at the table. He could see the top of her dark head, bent, staring at the floor.

  ‘Please.’ It was as if he had never heard his aunt say this word before: please. It came hard from her, squeezed out.

  ‘No.’ His mother looked up again. ‘I’m worried about him. I had a call from the school this morning.’

  David’s heart leapt, and he took an instinctive step back. But could not leave.

  Silence. Then Alice said, sounding weary now, ‘I’ll not go against you and John. You’ve done your best for him. But sometime, I think he should know. It’s not easy for me, to admit to my mistake – more than a mistake, looking back. But nowadays, young folk want to know everything; they want to know more than we did.’

  ‘He’ll have to be told, I do know that. I’m not daft, Alice, these things always come out. But not just now, not yet.’

  Alice said something in answer to this, but her voice was low, and he could not hear. Then she went out of the kitchen. He could slink away now, as he had before, but somehow he had left it too late. Compelled, he went up to the open kitchen door, and stepped inside.

  ‘What was all that about?’

  Shocked, his mother started up, her hand to her breast, her skin blanching. He had never seen anyone change colour like that, so fast.

  ‘David.’ It came out in a whisper.

  ‘Sorry – I skived off. I came home, I wanted to tell you – anyway, sorry, I’m going to leave school.’

  Faith was shaking, but she took a deep breath, steadying herself. ‘You gave me such a fright.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again. She seemed to recover, and to be aware, for the first time, of what he had said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘When Mr Brodie phoned this morning, I knew what he was going to say before he came out with it. The state you come home, sometimes. I knew you hadn’t been at school.’

  He saw she was preoccupied with something far greater than the question of whether he went to school or not. This – from a mother who had gone on and on about Highers, university, making something of himself.

  ‘What were you and Auntie Alice talking about?’

  She bit her lip, and looked away. ‘I’ll talk to you about that later. When Alice is away. Mamie’s home tonight – she’s going back to Duthie Terrace tomorrow.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I want you to keep it to yourself,’ she went on. ‘You’re not to say anything to the girls, or to Dad.’

  ‘What – about skiving off?’

  ‘About what I will tell you.’

  ‘But – are you going to speak to Dad about me leaving school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was not the first bargain his mother had made with him. But the childish negotiations over food, pocket money, staying out late – these were on a different scale. There, she took no risk, had nothing to lose. This was different.

  In bed that night, he puzzled over the words he had heard. Next day, he made no pretence of going to school.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Eleanor asked, standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

  ‘I’ve got a headache.’

 
; ‘No, you haven’t. You’re skiving. You’ve been skiving for weeks. Mum and Dad were talking about it last night after Auntie Alice had gone to bed. I hope you sat the Highers. Did you?’

  ‘Go away.’ He turned over, pulling the covers round him.

  ‘You must have been a changeling,’ Eleanor mocked. ‘Here’s Marion and me, working hard, being good girls, and look at you. What are you going to do instead? Instead of being good, and going to university, like they want you to.’

  He sat up in bed. ‘What’s a changeling?’ he asked. ‘I used to know, but I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘That’s because you’re thick,’ Eleanor said, going out of the room, her mind on the day ahead, on Ian Cooper, who had asked her out, her. Three of her friends had been after him for ages.

  ‘No, Eleanor, tell me. What is it?’

  ‘What, a changeling? It’s a baby the fairies leave in place of your real one. So it grows up a kind of fairy child, trouble all the way.’ She waggled her fingers at him as she left with a swish of her long flowery skirt, a jingle of silver bangles.

  David lay back, staring at the ceiling.

  He got up after his father had gone to work, after the morning had ticked by, after lunch. Mamie had called to collect Alice. Downstairs, the house was very quiet. He found his mother sitting in the living room, the newspaper on her lap, the coffee cups still on the table by the window. She looked round as he came in.

  There you are,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, I should have got up to see Auntie Mamie.’

  ‘I told them you weren’t well.’

  ‘Right.’

  He sat down on the chair opposite hers, and stretched out his legs. In his pyjama trousers and T-shirt, his hair on end, he looked rough, still bleary from sleep.

  ‘You’d better get washed and dressed,’ she said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ She made as if to get up.

  ‘I’m adopted, amn’t I?’

  His mother sat down on her chair again. Carefully, she folded the Press and Journal and laid it on the floor.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘We never adopted you.’