by Ron Butlin
‘My experience?’ She glanced beyond Mr Wilson’s shoulder to the top storey and roof of the building opposite. ‘I am a good worker. Reliable, honest and . . .’
‘Yes. Naturally. All applicants are.’
‘My mother always said I should be awarded an M.A. – Mother’s Assistant – I was so good at helping her run the house.’
‘And. Outside the. House?’
‘Outside? Of course . . . I’ve been a waitress.’
The face arranged itself into what might have been intended as a smile of encouragement. ‘Where?’
She said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Lewis.’
‘Lewis?’ Mr Wilson’s mouth seemed to savour the unexpectedness of this place-name.
‘In the Outer Hebrides.’
‘Yes. Miss Davies. I do know. Where Lewis is.’ Of its own accord his right hand picked up a pen from the desk and held it in readiness. ‘Silver Service?’
Doing her best to keep her thumbs out of the chips when serving the sit-in suppers was the closest she’d come to the niceties of Silver Service, but this was no time for hair-splitting. There was no need to burden her interviewer with unnecessary information.
‘Yes, I’m experienced in Silver Service. And also acting as cashier, when required.’ Well, why not? – she handled money every day, after all.
‘Indeed. References?’
‘Yes, naturally . . .’
She’d completely forgotten about references
‘. . . They can be produced when asked for.’ She and Jean could easily cobble something together, something that would include a glowing testament to her Silver Service skills.
‘Hmm. Well. Now, Miss . . . Davies. A few details. Full name?’
It was Snooty Junior’s perfume, mashed roses, which entered the room first, closely followed by the familiar blouse, lipstick and Reception smile. The whole effect was topped off by a bleached perm. ‘Excuse me, Mr Wilson . . .’
‘Margaret Davies, Miss. I have — ’
‘. . . Excuse me, I hadn’t realised you were occupied, Mr Wilson. It’s the Caledonian.’
‘Thank you, Miss Webster.’ The Recording Angel took the sheet of paper the receptionist was holding out to him. ‘Seems you’re in luck, Miss Davies. Perfect timing, in fact. The Caledonian Hotel is urgently looking for someone experienced in Silver Service and — ’
Indicating Maggie with a nod of her head, Snooty Junior gave an emphatic cough, then leant down to whisper something into her boss’s ear. Mr Wilson listened, then followed her gaze.
‘Ah,’ he nodded a moment later, and this time his ‘humph’ was one of disapproval.
Both Snooty Junior and the Recording Angel were now looking very closely at her, closely and in silence.
Mr Wilson was first to speak. ‘Ah, yes. Indeed. Quite right. To bring it to. My attention. Thank you, Miss Webster.’
Snooty Junior inclined her head in acknowledgement, but said nothing. She remained standing at her boss’s side.
‘In these circumstances, Miss Davies, I’m afraid there is no position available for you.’ His unexpected rush of words concluded: ‘Nor need you put yourself to the trouble of returning here . . . afterwards. Good Day.’
Having pronounced sentence, the Recording Angel withdrew into even greater shadow than before.
Maggie was hardly aware of coming down the four flights and returning to the end-of-day bustle of Hanover Street. What had she been hoping for? Nearly seven months pregnant and unmarried, did she really expect someone to give her a job?
The downward slope of the pavement carried her on to Princes Street. Across the road stood the Royal Scottish Academy looking more than ever like a Greek temple that had been left for too long out in the Scottish rain. Over the years, layer upon layer of soot from the nearby trains and the city chimneys had drifted onto its pillars and walls, to turn into black mould. The grime was so ingrained that the stonework looked like it was being eaten away from the inside. The nearby Scott Monument looked just as dingy. If she herself stood in Princes Street long enough – and what other plans did she have? – would that black, tarry grit settle on her and turn her into a statue? A memorial to the Unmarried Mother, with her swollen belly for everyone to see?
She could imagine them gathered round her plinth – the Snooty Juniors, the Wilsons, the Norries, the Callanders, her parents and the rest of them – so many faces glaring up at her, despising her. The whole city and beyond come to show their contempt.
Well, to hell with them! Let them all burn, as Jean said. She wouldn’t even lean down and spit on them to put out the flames.
PART TWO
MAGGIE GAVE UP looking for work and spent the remaining weeks helping her sister-in-law as much as she was able, making the local deliveries, washing the baking bowls and pots, sweeping and mopping the floor every night, cleaning the oven at the weekends. The letters that came from Michael were the high points. They seemed to be from another time, another world – did they tell of a past she was in danger of forgetting or of a future that was still waiting for her? Last thing at night, lying on her chaise longue in the boxroom, she would read them over and over, trying to bring them into the present, trying to take their reassuring words and promises along with her into the night ahead.
With Jean’s help she found a discreet nursing home off Minto Street in the Southside, and booked herself in to stay overnight when her time came. She planned to give birth there, away from the snubs and sneers of a public ward, and without the shame of an empty chair by her hospital bed when the proud husbands came to visit with flowers.
But then what?
The last of her Fusco savings would soon run out. Then what?
One thing was sure, cosy though the boxroom was, she couldn’t live there for ever – not with a newborn baby.
The children’s home was called Woodstock House. It was a large Victorian townhouse that stood like a turreted galleon moored in a sea of green lawn while around it lay a scattered archipelago of hope – a neatly laid-out kitchen garden, a line of small brightly painted sheds along the back wall next to a greenhouse. This country mansion lookalike had been built as a trumpet blast of one man’s infatuation with himself and his commercial rapacity, but with the captain of Scottish industry now long gone, so too were the finances necessary for the building’s upkeep. According to Jean, the children’s home was a private institution that only survived thanks to donations, mostly anonymous, and a dedicated staff. There might be a church involved in it somewhere, but she wasn’t sure. Or else it might be some kind of charity place, like those houses for fallen women. Not that Maggie was one of those, her sister-in-law had quickly added.
The brass bell-pull slid stiffly back into the wall. The clang-clang and its echo tolled out emptily. Somewhere a child shouted, ‘Ding-ding! Ding-ding!’
There was the sound of light, skipping footsteps. The front door opened.
‘Hello!’
The girl was a teenager, if that – an upturned face that was mostly grin, keen eyes and a tangle of unbrushed blonde curls. She shifted from foot to foot to unheard dance music while shaking her head and clicking her fingers to keep time.
Maggie hesitated. ‘Hello . . . I’ve come to see . . .’
‘Yes? Plenty to see in here. Come in.’ The young girl did a half-twirl and pointed towards a coarse mat. ‘This here’s for the rain. Mrs Saunders doesn’t like rain, or mud. I’m going to be a chorus girl.’
Maggie wiped her feet.
The apprentice chorus girl high-kicked, birled herself quickly round, then faced-to again: ‘Do you want to see her?’
‘I phoned and — ’
‘Mrs Saunders sees people when people come. I’m just Donna.’ She took a step back, then kicked out her right leg in a chorus-line of one. ‘I’ll take you.’
The vestibule
had a tiled floor.
‘Thank you, Donna.’
The girl carefully pulled the front door behind her. ‘We keep it shut, for the heat.’
With a soft-shoe shuffle, the young dancer led the way into a large hall that smelled of cooking. Dim light came through a glass cupola above, the walls were a pale green and hung generously with dusty-looking portraits in heavy frames. Maggie could feel a chill coming up through the linoleum. The only furniture was a small but elaborately carved wooden chair that stood at the bottom of the staircase and looked like a make-believe throne waiting to be claimed by the pretend king of a make-believe little country. Parked next to it was a cumbersome, old-fashioned pram, dark green with large spoked wheels reaching high up its sides like a paddle-steamer.
The girl pointed to it. ‘That’s the Tractor.’
‘It’s big, right enough.’
Another flight of stairs disappeared into darkness below, presumably down to the basement.
Donna peered at her: ‘Are you a mother?’
‘I’m going to be – very soon.’
The young girl came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hall, her arms arched above her head in a ballet pose. Her face turned in profile, she held the position for several seconds. ‘It’s not easy.’
Did she mean being a mother wasn’t easy, or that this particular pose was a strain to hold? Could the girl be implying that she herself was a mother, this slip of a lass?
Maggie gazed round the uncarpeted space. ‘I suppose not.’
The soft-shoe shuffle was then resumed until, with a sudden and unexpectedly grown-up sway of her hips, Donna halted outside a closed door marked private. She curtseyed.
‘In here.’
In one smooth unbroken action she knocked, turned the handle and pushed open the door. This done, she went tap-dancing off down the corridor, clicking her fingers in time.
‘Enter.’ A firm voice.
The room was slightly warmer, with a dark brown carpet and rust-red curtains that sagged like a pair of comfortably slack stockings. The woman sitting behind the desk glanced up – ‘Be with you shortly’ – then continued reading. A cigarette burned in the ashtray beside her.
Maggie was back at school once again, being made to wait in the headmistress’s office where she’d been sent to get shouted at for not paying attention in class, or for coming in late, or for walking around in a daze. Though the actual details of the offence usually varied, in essence the charge was always the same – she was getting punished for being herself. This time, however, the punishment was for being herself and for getting herself pregnant. She stared down at the floor.
The superintendent laid the sheet of paper aside. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m Maggie Davies. I phoned.’ The unspoken school-girl ‘Miss’ slid to the floor where it was immediately absorbed into the carpet. Even the young sprite Donna had seemed older and more mature than she herself felt at this moment.
‘Davies?’ Mrs Saunders began leafing through one of the stacks of papers on her desk. ‘Davies? Davies? Davies? . . .’ She riffled through another stack. ‘You phoned recently, you say?’ Then started on stack number three. ‘Ah yes, here you are. I remember now. You’re due in a month and going to the nursing home in Queens Crescent. A good place, well worth the expense.’
Mrs Saunders’ smile of approval at once cancelled out the schoolroom-strictness, replacing it with a feeling of warmth and unexpected kindness. Even the rain hitting the window seemed to ease off slightly.
‘Thank you, Mrs Saunders. I wanted to do the best I could.’
‘There’s no current address given here. You’re staying with your family, perhaps, or — ?’ Mrs Saunders looked closely at her. ‘You do have somewhere to live, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I’m staying with a friend at the moment. I’ll be starting a new job shortly, then getting my own place. Permanent. Somewhere near here, so that I can — ’
‘That’s fine, Miss Davies, thank you. So long as I have an address for my records.’
Maggie nodded to show her willingness.
Mrs Saunders continued, ‘You know the rules and conditions?’
‘Rules? Oh yes, I knew there’d be rules.’
The superintendent took a puff at her cigarette, blew out the smoke and asked her to sit down.
While the rules and conditions were gone through, Maggie did her best to concentrate on what was being said and not let her mind drift to the ever-changing patterns the rain made as it streamed down the window. She wondered where Donna had sashayed herself off to . . . The cheerful yells she could hear, were they coming from a children’s playroom somewhere nearby? Had the junior chorus girl actually been born here? She seemed almost like a ghost-child haunting the empty hall, the spirit of all the young lives who –
‘. . . then sign here at the bottom,’ Mrs Saunders was saying, ‘where it’s marked with a cross.’
Maggie took the sheet of paper that had been pushed across the desk to her. She glanced down the form:
MOTHER’S NAME —
MOTHER’S ADDRESS —
‘Once the child is in our care, he will be well looked after. He will be our responsibility day and night. He will receive good food and all the comfort and concern one could wish for. He will be happy.’
MOTHER’S OCCUPATION —
FATHER’S NAME (if known) —
FATHER’S OCCUPATION (if known) —
‘You can leave the name of the child blank for the moment. Just sign.’
CHILD’S NAME —
CHILD’S DATE OF BIRTH —
CHILD’S PLACE OF BIRTH —
‘Once the child is in our care, as I say, you needn’t give him a second thought – you can forget him. In fact, it’s better that you do. In my experience, things always work out much better when mothers don’t see the children at all. Only makes things harder. The more you visit, the more he’ll become part of your life and you of his, and the more painful will be the final parting. Unbearably painful – for both of you.’ Mrs Saunders allowed herself another deep drag of her cigarette and stared into the smoke wreathing between them.
‘I have to stress, Miss Davies, that when it comes, the parting will be final. You will not be given the address of your child’s new home, nor the name of his new parents. Over the years I’ve learned to encourage new parents to let the child believe that they are his true parents. It’s kinder that way, kinder for everyone.’ Another puff, as if taking a bow.
‘What’s this at the bottom about ‘a limit of six calendar months?’
‘That? A formality. Of course, the earlier he’s adopted the easier he’s adopted, if you understand me.’ The superintendent smiled. ‘Rest assured, the adoptive parents’ love and affection for their new child will follow in good time. It always does.’ A second smile. ‘I can have him placed within days, then he’ll be free to get on with his new life and you can get on with yours. Best for everyone.’ Smile number three.
‘But he won’t be adopted just like that, will he? I’m not wanting him to be — ’
‘No, of course, not, Miss Davies. The child’s best interests always come first. He’s our prime concern at all times. But you can rest assured that all new parents are carefully vetted. We make sure they are respectable people, church-going and financially secure. Home-owners. Pillars of the community.’ With every quality listed, the pointed look in the superintendent’s eyes emphasised her real meaning: We make sure they’re everything the likes of you could never be.
‘And did I mention –’ Mrs Saunders gave a slight cough ‘– that the new parents frequently want to show their appreciation to the mother? You understand what I mean? Not that they will ever meet you, of course – that’s naturally quite out of the question – but I will forward on to you any token of their appreciation. The amount can be quite considerable som
etimes . . .’
Maggie had reached the cross marking where she was to sign. Her child would be well looked after, it seemed. For the first six months any adoption needed her approval, which she naturally wouldn’t give. ‘And after the six months?’
‘Well, Miss Davies, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?’ Having taken a final drag at her cigarette, the superintendent ground it out in the ashtray. ‘Lots can happen before then, can’t it?’
It certainly could – the moment she’d started her new job and found somewhere more suitable to stay, she’d be taking her baby back.
‘All in good time, Miss Davies.’
Having filled in the form, Maggie signed her name.
When she looked up, Mrs Saunders was giving her a warm smile.
‘Thank you, Miss Davies, and speaking on behalf of everyone here at Woodstock House, let me say how much we all look forward to welcoming your newborn child and to caring for him. We have the address in Queen’s Crescent and will see to all the arrangements.’ She stood up. ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Davies.’
‘I’d like to see his room, please.’
‘His room?’ Pen in hand, Mrs Saunders was already reaching towards the stack of papers. ‘Where his cot’ll be, you mean? I’m afraid that’s not possible right now. Disrupts routine.’ There was no smile this time. ‘All in due course, Miss Davies. All in due course.’
Maggie got back home to find Jean had a present for her.
‘The answer tae yer prayers,’ the older woman explained.
Sitting on Jean’s baking table, the shiny black typewriter fairly bristled with keys, knobs and levers.
Maggie’s obvious objection: ‘But, Jean, I can’t type.’
‘There’s a book comes wi it, tellin ye whit tae dae an see ye stairted. The book maks it look easy enough.’
‘Books always do.’
‘Well, seems it’s maistly practice. When the time’s richt, ye’ll get yersel a job, a guid job. No as a skivvie waitress or stuck in a pub fou o gropin auld drunks. Folks in offices are aye needin typists – aa thae tycoon businessmen, bankers an lawyers, you name it.’ Her sister-in-law gave her a gentle punch in the arm. ‘Play yer cards richt, Maggie, an a smairt-lookin lass like you micht land hersel mair than just a job!’
