Brow of the Gallowgate

by Doris Davidson

  ‘We’ve a trunk with clothes and little odds and ends,’ Martin told her. ‘It’s at the station, all we have in the world, so I’ll have to arrange for it to be collected.’

  Albert got to his feet. ‘Come down to the shop, and Joe can take you in the van.’ He was very proud of the vehicle which Gracie’s husband had persuaded him to buy a few weeks earlier. The two of you’ll manage to lift the trunk?’

  ‘Oh, easily, and thanks.’

  Hetty turned to her sister when the men went out. ‘I can’t understand why you didn’t cable to let us know about Mother. I feel quite hurt about it.’

  ‘I sent the cable to Charlie,’ Gracie felt just as upset. ‘I thought he’d tell you and Flo, and I wondered why none of you answered it.’ She gulped.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I should have thought. Oh, God, Gracie, I’ve been thinking that we went through hell, but I suppose it wasn’t much better for you here?’

  Gracie smiled wryly. ‘No, it was pretty awful here, too, and I was glad I’d Joe for support.’

  ‘I like him, and I’m very happy for you both. Where will we be sleeping, what are the arrangements?’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d have Martin with you, but we can take up another single bed from the store. You’ll be in Ishbel’s old room, for she’s gone up to the attics.’

  ‘I hope we haven’t made her give up her . . .’

  ‘No, no. She’s been up there for weeks, and she calls the extra room a sitting room now. It used to be a study, but she left school at Christmas, and has a job in an office in Union Street.’ Gracie hadn’t the heart to tell Hetty that it was Joe and she who were giving up one of their rooms.

  When Ishbel came down there were more excited, tearful, greetings, but at last, Hetty stood back. ‘Goodness, you’ve shot up since I saw you. I believe you’re going to be taller than any of the rest of us, even Ellie.’

  ‘I’m half an inch bigger than Ellie already, and I’m only fifteen.’ Ishbel beamed proudly.

  ‘Eat your breakfast or you’ll be late,’ Gracie scolded.

  But Ishbel wasn’t quite ready to eat. ‘Why have you come back from New Zealand, Hetty?’ Catching the troubled look that passed between her sisters, she added, sarcastically, ‘Or am I still too young to understand things?’

  Gracie gave her a little push. ‘Yes, you are. Get on.’

  ‘It’s no fun being youngest. I’m always treated like a baby.’ Still grumbling, Ishbel sat down at the table.

  When Martin and Joe staggered up with the trunk, some twenty minutes later, the New Zealander was shaking his head and smiling. ‘That Ishbel. She took one look at me as she passed just now, and said she thought you’d walked out on me, Hetty. What have you been saying to her?’

  ‘Nothing, but I didn’t remember she hadn’t seen you today. I suppose she must have thought I was here on my own.’

  The two men laughed, but Hetty looked thoughtful. ‘It must be awkward for her. Maybe we should tell her everything.’

  Gracie frowned. ‘Oh, no. That would only make her want to know all the whys and wherefores, and she’d just be a pest.’

  At the beginning of April, when Gracie and Hetty both announced that they were going to be mothers, it wasn’t only Joe and Martin who were pleased. Ishbel was so excited that she couldn’t stop speaking about it, until Gracie had to tell her to be quiet.

  Albert thought it over in bed. It was good to have one more of his family at home, and the prospect of children running about again, prattling and wanting to know things, made him happier than he’d been since Gracie’s wedding. The house would soon be full, like it used to be, like he and Bathie had wanted it from the very start.

  ‘I can picture our children and our children’s children here,’ she’d said, when he’d taken her to look at it first.

  All seven of their children had grown up here. Most of them had left for what they hoped were greener pastures, but Hetty had come back. It would serve Bella Wyness right if her vindictive shennanigans drove all the young Ogilvies home to the Gallowgate. No, Albert checked himself. He didn’t want Flo and Charlie to be driven out of their adopted country.

  His thoughts turned to the house again, for he’d improved it a bit since he and Bathie moved in. He’d had water plumbed in, and gas installed, and now Joe and Martin were doing their best to persuade him to put in a bathroom.

  ‘We managed fine with one outside lavvy for nine of us,’ he’d told them, when they suggested it first. ‘And a tin bath in front of the kitchen range.’

  ‘Once you’ve had a bathroom,’ Hetty had said, caustically, ‘this seems very primitive.’

  She’d been right, and he should have thought about it years ago. He’d go and see about it tomorrow, but the plumber would have to figure out where to put it.

  His mind jumped again to Flo, who knew about her mother now and wrote once a fortnight to Gracie. Leonard was ‘quite a handful’, as she put it, but he was only six months old. Wait till he was toddling about, poking his fingers everywhere he shouldn’t, then Flo would really have her hands full. Hetty and her husband had settled down quickly, thank goodness. Martin helped out sometimes in the shop, but he’d applied to the University and had been accepted to begin after the summer break, to continue his Law studies.

  If only he knew where Charlie was, Albert thought sadly, he’d feel happier.

  Preparations for their expected infants took up much of Gracie’s and Hetty’s time, and Ishbel grew quite irritated.

  ‘I’m sick and tired of seeing knitting needles and wool all over the place,’ she declared one evening, when they were clearing up after supper. She watched them squeezing past each other and giggling as their bulky fronts collided. ‘Oh, you two!’ she burst out, at last. ‘You’re like a couple of elephants. All you need are tusks.’

  ‘Wait till you’re having a baby,’ Hetty laughed. ‘Then we’ll see who looks like an elephant.’

  As Ishbel’s figure was rather a sore point with her, she subsided into hurt silence, and turned to the sink, muttering, sourly, ‘It’s all right for you to laugh.’

  Gracie felt sorry for her, but Ishbel asked for all she got. They’d thought she would stop her complaining once she left school, but she was bored with her job and took it out on her family. They all teased her. However, it wasn’t really fair to taunt her about her weight, because she was very sensitive about it, though it was only puppy fat.

  Apart from Ishbel’s occasional outbursts, the house was running smoothly, Gracie and Hetty were well organized. The new bathroom had been installed between Albert’s bedroom and the dining room, although it had meant sacrificing a part of both. It had sounded terrible when the builder had suggested it, but now that it was finished, the reduction in the size of these rooms was scarcely noticeable.

  Albert, however, had insisted that the large double bed was too big for his bedroom now, and had made his two sons-in-law dismantle it and take it up to the middle floor for Hetty and Martin. He used one of their single beds now, and the other was in the store again.

  Martin had asked if he and Hetty could live in the house until his studies were finished and he was making a decent living as a solicitor, and Albert had been quite happy to agree. It was really much better for Hetty and Gracie to be together in their delicate condition.

  Both confinements were to be in November, Gracie’s about ten days before Hetty’s, if all went according to plan, and they looked forward to comparing the progress of their infants once they arrived.

  A close friendship had sprung up between Joe and Martin, and they took Albert out for a drink on Saturday nights, but he always specified, ‘Just one, mind,’ before they left the house. On Sunday afternoons, the three men usually went for a walk, if the weather was favourable, and left Hetty and Gracie to discuss their pregnancies.

  Taken all in all, and apart from Bathie not being there, life on the brow of the Gallowgate was fairly satisfactory, Albert decided one night, before he closed his eyes and fe
ll into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  It was extremely hot, even for November, and Flo Dunbar let herself into her bungalow with great relief. Pushing the go-car to the shops had taken much more out of her than she’d thought, and Leonard was being fractious, which hadn’t helped.

  She kicked off her shoes and put the kettle on. Thank goodness the kitchen was at the back, and didn’t catch the sun until afternoon. Thank goodness, too, that Leonard had fallen asleep. She’d have peace to enjoy her cup of tea.

  After she filled her cup, she sat down, put her silk-clad feet up on the other chair, then pulled her handbag across the table to take out her cigarettes. Will didn’t approve of women smoking, but he didn’t have to put up with Leonard all day, and a cigarette was the only thing to steady her nerves.

  When the doorbell rang, she frowned, afraid that it would wake her son, but swung her legs down quickly to save whoever it was ringing again. She stared blankly at the tall figure on her doorstep for a moment before she recognized him.

  ‘Charlie!’ Flinging her arms round his neck, she burst into tears.

  ‘Steady on.’ He glanced round in embarrassment, in case anyone should see, but the dirt road was empty and he patted her back until she stopped crying.

  Standing away from him, she said, ‘Come in, Charlie, but if you waken Leonard, you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Leonard?’ A hint of a smile softened his rather grim mouth. ‘So you and Will have carried on the Ogilvie tradition, have you? It had to be L after Ellie’s Kathleen, of course.’

  Flo nodded, feeling shy with him, but she had to find out more about this brother who had been gone for two years.

  ‘Where did you go, Charlie? We were all so worried.’

  He sat down and spread his hands out on his knees, palms up, then raised his eyes. ‘First of all, how’s Vena, and you’d better tell me if I have a son or a daughter?’

  She almost choked on the nervous ball which filled her throat. ‘Oh, God, Charlie!’ She began to weep again.

  His face blanched under his tan. ‘What’s wrong? What happened, Flo? For God’s sake, tell me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ she gulped. ‘The baby was stillborn and Vena . . . died giving it birth.’

  He stared at her in disbelief for a few seconds, then dropped his head and broke into harsh, loud sobs.

  When at last he looked up, his crumpled face had eased a little. ‘Flo, had you any idea why I went away?’

  ‘No. Was it something to do with . . . Bella?’

  ‘It was everything to do with Bella.’ His low voice was bitter. ‘I may as well tell you from the very beginning, so you’ll understand and not blame me too much.’

  She listened, appalled, to his account of his experience as a child, but, each time she opened her mouth to speak, he held up his hand to prevent her uttering a word.

  ‘You’ll maybe find this hard to believe, Flo, but when Vena and I first spoke about coming to New Zealand, I forgot Bella was here. I fancied coming to Wanganui, we’d have you and Hetty, and Mary and Jeannie, so we wouldn’t feel so lost. It seemed ideal, but, oh God, I wish we’d gone to Australia or Canada, or any bloody place but here.’

  Stopping to pull out his handkerchief, he wiped his eyes and blew his nose. ‘Everything was going so well for us, for I got the job – I’d always wanted to work in the open air – and the house, and Vena was expecting, after we thought she would never have any more. Then Hetty invited us that night.’

  ‘But you’d been to see her and Martin before, hadn’t you?’

  ‘A good few times, but Bella once told Martin what she’d done, God knows why, so he’d made sure she was never asked at the same time as us. The bitch must have found out that we’d be there that night, and she turned up out of the blue.’ Charlie’s haunted eyes darted away. ‘I felt sick at the very sight of her, but when she kissed me that way, it was a thousand times worse. I could have killed her when she said it was to remind me. I needed no reminding, for it had all come flooding back the minute I saw her sneering at me – the touching, the kissing, the . . .’

  Shuddering, he drew in his mouth then blew his lips out noisily. ‘I could feel the same guilt, the same terror, I’d had when I was eight years old. I made up my mind never to take the chance of meeting her again, but she came to our house a week or so after that, and told Vena a pack of lies. I was so mad, I went to tell her to leave us alone, but she just laughed and said she was having her revenge.’

  ‘For being sacked all that time ago?’ Flo couldn’t believe that anyone could be so vindictive.

  ‘Well, I thought it was because I’d told Mother what she’d done to me, but she said it wasn’t only that. It turned out that Father wouldn’t go to bed with her when she’d asked him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’ Flo was heatedly indignant.

  ‘You don’t know how evil she is, Flo. She told Vena that I’d been unfaithful – with her, mind – and that I’d been going to her house steady and making love to her. All lies, but Vena believed her, and we’d a blazing row.’

  ‘I’ve heard Mary and Jeannie saying they wouldn’t believe a word Bella said. Couldn’t you have made Vena understand?’

  ‘I tried, but she was out of her senses with anger and jealousy, and that’s when I walked out. I couldn’t take any more, but I felt like killing that woman for what she’d done.’ His hands clenched until the knuckles showed white.

  ‘Charlie, did you know that Vena was put out of the house after you left?

  ‘God almighty! No, I didn’t realize. I was in such a state, I couldn’t think straight. Where did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know, Charlie. We thought she might have gone to look for you, but she was in Wellington when . . . They found Hetty’s address in her bag, and Martin had to identify her.’

  ‘Christ, Flo! It’s all my fault.’ Charlie jumped to his feet. ‘Mine and that bitch’s.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Flo stood up in panic.

  ‘Where do you think?’ His voice was rough.

  Clutching him, she shouted, ‘What good would it do now?’

  ‘It would give me the utmost satisfaction.’ His words rang round the room and seemed to echo for a moment.

  ‘It would give her more satisfaction.’

  ‘Not if I do what I intend doing.’

  Their raised voices unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, woke little Leonard, and Flo ran to pick him up.

  Charlie’s murderous intentions ebbed away as he watched his sister trying to pacify her child. ‘Give him to me.’

  The small boy stopped howling and looked at the stranger with huge round eyes as his mother handed him over.

  ‘Come to Uncle Charlie,’ the man crooned.

  When Leonard echoed, ‘Unca Charrie,’ the laughter of the two adults became slightly hysterical, but the drama was over, thanks to the two-year-old who bounced gaily up and down on his uncle’s knee when he sat down.

  ‘He’s a sturdy little devil,’ Charlie observed, ruefully, as the little feet pounded against him.

  When Will came home at teatime, he could hardly believe what he saw. Charlie Ogilvie, who hadn’t been heard of for two years, was crawling about on the floor, with Leonard, chortling in delight, astride his back.

  Flo signalled to him to say nothing about her brother’s absence, so he just said, ‘It’s good to see you again, Charlie.’

  Leonard jumped down and ran to his father, and Charlie pulled himself upright, flexing his legs. ‘He’s a great wee lad. You’re a very lucky man, Will.’

  ‘I know that.’

  After tea, it was Charlie who suggested that he and his brother-in-law should take a walk. ‘Will wants to know why I left like that, and I want to tell him.’

  When Will heard the story – more graphic details added to what Flo had been told – he shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t know how you can be so calm about it. After what Bella did, I’d feel like strangling her, if it was me.
’

  ‘I did for a while, and the feeling came back when I was telling Flo what had happened, but, as she said, what good would it do? I’d only end up being hanged – though my life’s no good to me now with Vena gone. I wish to God I’d never come back and learned that.’

  ‘Why did you come back?’ Will asked, gently.

  ‘I meant to make it up with my wife, but I wanted to hear what Flo said before I went to Vena. Christ, Will, I’d give my right arm to undo . . .’ He stopped, appalled at what he was saying to a man who had lost his left arm in the war, but Will was smiling.

  ‘I understand, Charlie.’

  There was a long silence, then Will said, ‘You were at the end of your tether, and you couldn’t help what happened after you left, or before you left, for that matter, and you’ll have to try to forget. Make a fresh start somewhere. Go back to wherever you’ve been for the last two years.’

  ‘I was drifting, just drifting. Working a few days here, a few days there. I was all over North Island, nearly, for I couldn’t settle, longing for Vena and wanting to see my child.’ He gulped but carried on. ‘Then I decided to come home. What happened wasn’t Vena’s fault.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Will agreed. ‘You know, Charlie, I felt really angry at you for leaving her. I didn’t know what had made you do it, but it was only a month before the baby was due, and I thought you were the lowest of the low. I couldn’t understand then, but I do now, and I don’t blame you any more.’

  They walked the next hundred yards without speaking, then Will said, ‘It might be as well if you went home to Aberdeen. Away from New Zealand altogether.’

  ‘My mother wouldn’t forgive me for what I did to Vena.’

  Hesitating for a fraction of a second, Will said, quietly, ‘Flo didn’t tell you? Your mother died two years ago.’

  ‘God! Oh, God!’ Charlie stopped walking, his anguished eyes squeezed up, his lips pulled back. ‘Not Mother, too?’