Once the pub had been successfully achieved he celebrated his freedom and new-found bachelorhood with a double whisky and a big golden frothing pint.
‘Cheers!’ he said, raising the whisky to everybody and nobody. He felt on top of the world.
War, he decided, had its advantages.
For the first time in years he felt really free. No anxieties about keeping the peace at home, no worries about Madge marching in on him either at the office or at somebody’s house.
She had nerve, Madge - he had to give her credit. Old Madge would barge in where angels feared to tread and there was a streak of violence in her that had to be seen (or felt) to be believed. She looked harmless enough with that freckly face and those laughing blue eyes but she packed a wallop like the back legs of a horse. Not that he had ever been at the receiving end. But he had winced in sympathy a few times when she had dished out a black eye or a bloody nose to some of his female acquaintances.
Madge was loyal to him no matter what happened; all the same he often got the feeling he was teetering along on a tightrope and one day he would slip and fall. Life seemed more and more a series of narrow escapes.
Now suddenly - freedom! Whistling cheerfully he returned to the street. He did not feel like working. The prospect of going home and making himself a meal did not appeal to him either, and he decided to take the rest of the day off to celebrate. First he would go over to his mother’s in Clydend for a meal and while he was there try and get the chance to chat up the wee blondie who lived up the same close.
He had passed the time of day with her a few times already. The poor girl was sex-starved. She fluttered and flushed and became as excited as a child with Santa Claus if he even glanced in her direction. It was pathetic. Her man had always worked nights, of course, and now he had joined up.
A sex-starved wife and a crazy husband. It took all kinds to make a world.
Alec’s mother was at home and welcomed him with unconcealed delight.
Blissfully unaware of the reason for his now more frequent visits she immediately began searching out the little titbits she saved up for such occasions.
‘I’ve got a cake, son!’ She came up close and gave him a conspiratorial nudge with a bony elbow. ‘Tipsy! Your favourite! Tipsy cake.’
He winked.
‘Great, Ma!’
‘And a few potatoes. I’ll make chips. It won’t take a minute, a few chips.’
‘Great, Ma!’
She would take ages. She was at the change of life he reckoned, and it affected her that way. She wandered aimlessly about, dropping whatever she touched, getting into mix-ups and forgetting where she had put everything from her corsets to her purse.
Restlessly, he strolled through to the room and stared down from the tiny attic window to the cobbled Dessie Street below.
Not every child had been moved to the safety of the countryside. Some still played with balls and skipping ropes, boys wrestled and punched, girls crawled along the pavement drawing peever beds with lumps of pipe-clay oblivious of their dangerous nearness to the docks across the main road and the high ships on stocks and other vessels crowding the river.
He returned to the kitchen lighting a cigarette. His mother was standing in the middle of the floor like a white-faced golliwog, her fingertips trembling against her mouth.
‘This is my last fag, Ma,’ said Alec. ‘I think I’ll run down for some.’
‘I was just trying to remember where I put the cake, son. A tipsy cake. I know I have it somewhere.’
‘Don’t worry, Ma. I’m in no rush. Take your time, hen.’
Her lips were like elastic, stretching, pursing, moving about.
Eventually she managed: ‘You’re a good lad!’
Alec shut the front door and stood for a minute or two on the landing.
Careful does it, he thought. The little blondie downstairs was maybe desperate for it but women were strange, touchy creatures and she was stranger and touchier than most.
For months now he had been doing a verbal minuet with her and it was proving the oddest experience of his life.
He still could not be perfectly sure what to make of her but he suspected that somewhere inside this delicate little butterfly there were emotions just as strong as those more obvious in Ruth Hunter.
Up till recently, of course, she had always been afraid of her husband suddenly appearing, and jumped and fluttered at the slightest sound, but now that he was out of the picture things should be different.
Not that her old man would have been justified in raising an eyebrow at anything that had happened so far: a chance meeting or two on the stairs, a few laughs and talks at her door. He had spoken to her downstairs in the shop, and a couple of times they had met for longer periods at his mother’s place, the girl’s gold hair and radiant face lighting up the dark attic room.
Puffing at his cigarette and blowing smoke out in front of him he went down the stairs until he came to the door marked Melvin MacNair.
He gave his usual rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat!
As always Catriona peeped timidly round a crack, then opened the door slowly, cautiously.
‘Hello there, gorgeous. How do you do it, eh?’
Her eyes smiled, fluttered down, shoulders and hands squeezed up to stifle giggles.
‘Do what?’
‘Look more beautiful every time I see you. Look at that hair.’
Alec’s hand went out to touch her hair and as usual she jerked back like a terrified doe. Only this time he was ready and his fingers reached and held, and wound round the soft silkiness.
‘Anybody else in, hen?’
‘No,’ she whispered, cringing as if he were striking her.
He chuckled. She was just standing there letting him play with her.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
‘I’m here by myself. The children are at my mother’s and my father-in-law’s down in the shop.’
‘I’ve just come for six pennies for a sixpence for the gas. Ma was making me something to eat and her gas ring’s gone out.’
‘Oh! Oh yes, yes. Yes, of course.’
The girl wriggled her head from under his hand and flew across the hall towards the kitchen. He followed her into the house and quietly shut the door.
This was a lot different from his mother’s poky place up under the rafters. There was a square room hall with various doors leading off it.
Polish was the keynote. The pungent waxy smell of it thickened the air. Everything was polished: even the walls, decorated with heavy embossed paper, shiny enough to see your face in. The doors, like the dark brown linoleum, gleamed and glittered, daring anyone to deface them.
Stepping stones of little rugs were dotted here and there. With great care he stepped on them until he reached the room into which Catriona had fled.
It was an immaculate, highly polished kitchen with sparkling sink and sideboard, table and chairs.
Funny, he thought, Ruth Hunter’s place was as posh and well kept as this but so much more comfortable and homely.
‘Find any, gorgeous?’
She gave a scream of terror at the unexpected sight of him that even he jumped.
‘My God, hen!’ He collapsed into one of the chairs by the fire, his hands on his chest. ‘You just about frightened the life out of me!’
The girl’s eyes remained enormous but laughter gurgled in her throat, escaping from her mouth in jerky little bursts. She put a hand up to try and control it, looking uncertain, apologetic, as if she were afraid he might be angry with her for making a rude noise.
Alec grinned at her and shook his head.
‘You’re an awful wee lassie.’
The fear went out of her eyes and she lowered her gaze and giggled childishly, and Alec immediately saw his cue. Here was a real Peter Pan, a girl who had never grown up.
‘Come over here!’
He pointed to the rug at his feet.
Obediently she came.
; ‘Am I a friend of yours?’ he asked, trying to sound stern.
‘W-w-well I … I suppose you are.’
‘Didn’t I carry your heavy message basket and your wean up the stairs for you the other day?’
‘Yes, you’re always very kind.’
‘Didn’t my mother deliver your wean?’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, she’s been terribly kind.’
‘She’s your friend?’
‘Oh, yes, I don’t know what I’d do without her.’
‘And I’m your friend?’
She nodded and smiled tentatively.
‘Well,’ he said, his eyes beginning to twinkle. ‘Don’t you know how to treat your friends?’
Worry cast a shadow over her face and she did not answer.
He leaned forward and caught hold of her hands.
‘It’s easy, hen, just be friendly!’
Chapter 15
He pulled her on to his knees and into his arms before she had time to realise what was happening and for a few minutes he held her like a baby, rocking her, patting her. She stiffened at first as though she were going to struggle but it was only for an imperceptible moment, until she fell under tthe spell of the gentle rocking.
Alec stroked and played with her hair and when he looked down he saw that her eyes had closed.
His hand slid down over her blouse and found her small breast. Immediately her arms flew up to hug herself protectively.
‘What’s wrong?’ he queried in aggrieved surprise as if she had offended him.
Her gaze shrank down.
‘I’d better go and get the pennies for your mother.’
‘There’s no hurry.’
‘I’d better go.’
He smiled.
‘I’m stronger than you, hen.’
Before she could panic his mouth quietened her and he burrowed down into a more comfortable position to enjoy a long slow exploration, but she was trembling and shaking and shivering with such violence that his plan to proceed in a leisurely fashion had to be abandoned.
‘No, please!’ She struggled up for air. ‘Oh, please. Somebody might come in. What if somebody saw me?’
She wept broken-heartedly.
‘Sh-sh!’ He stroked her hair. ‘I don’t want to upset you - just love you.’
‘Love me?’ Immediately her gaze beseeched him. ‘You mean that?’
‘Of course.’
‘You love me?’
‘Adore you!’
‘Is that the same as loving? Does that mean you care about me?’
‘I love you. I really care about you. All right?’
‘No … no!’ She began to struggle again. ‘Somebody might see me!’
‘Gorgeous, you’re in an upstairs flat. Are you frightened a passing pigeon will keek in?’
‘I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Sh … sh … All right. All right.’ He lifted her up in his arms. ‘I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’
He carried her out into the dark hall.
‘Where’s the bedroom?’
‘Oh, no, please, please put me down.’
‘You know I love you, don’t you?’
She shook her head, eyes wet and helpless.
‘Well, gorgeous, I do!’
He let her slide down as he kissed her again.
‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘What room?’
‘No, somebody might see through the windows.’
‘We could draw the blinds.’
‘Everyone would know.’
The situation was becoming ridiculous but he managed to keep his voice low.
‘Here then? It’s dark and there’s no windows.’
Furtively, fearfully she peered around.
‘The doors are open.’
‘Not the front door. It’s locked.’
‘The other doors.’
‘Sweetheart, we can shut them if it’ll make you feel happy.’
He kept his arm firmly around her as they went round the hall securing every door.
‘All right now?’
Another fit of shivering took possession of her.
‘Somebody could see through the letter-box.’
With an effort, he controlled himself.
‘If we open this cupboard and stand behind it, nobody could see, not even through the letter-box.’
He manoeuvred her against the cupboard shelves.
‘Anyway, it’s pitch dark.’
‘It’s important.’
‘What is, hen?’
‘That I know for sure.’
‘Nobody can see.’
‘That you love me.’
‘I told you.’
‘Promise me you mean it.’
‘I promise.’
‘I want you to be perfectly honest. I need to feel sure.’
So anxious was she in testing his sincerity and anxiously searching his eyes that she was unaware of his fingers deftly unbuttoning and baring her. But the moment the heat of their bodies came together she gave a strangled cry of surprise and began struggling and fighting.
‘Sh … sh,’ he whispered. ‘Somebody will hear you.’
At once she quietened and became motionless.
‘Good girl,’ he rewarded her. ‘Good girl.’
He took as long as he dared. After all, the old man was liable to come up from the shop and for all he knew her battle-axe of a mother might be due to arrive on the scene.
‘Your father-in-law or your mother might come,’ he told her eventually. ‘I’d better go.’
He allowed her to cling on to him and he kept his arm around her until they reached the outside door. He unlocked, then disentangled himself. ‘Thanks, hen. I’ll see you again soon.’
Her voice quavered out faint and high-pitched like an infant’s.
‘You won’t tell anybody about me?’
‘Don’t be daft!’
He blew her a kiss before shutting the door and rapidly returning upstairs.
‘I’ve got it all ready, son,’ his mother greeted him, with a flushed, triumphant face.
‘Just a minute, Ma. Give me a minute, hen, there’s something I’m bursting to do.’
He staggered past her into the kitchen and collapsed full length on the sofa.
Laughter exploded up from his belly in jerks and swirls, madder and madder like a firework display. He writhed and clutched himself and flayed about shouting and howling.
‘Are you feeling all right,son?’
Uncertainty tipped his mother’s voice off balance.
He sat up, fished for a handkerchief and wiped tears of hilarity from his eyes.
‘Great Ma! What’s for tea, hen? I’m starving.’
She had committed adultery. She had committed adultery.
Catriona wandered back to the kitchen in a daze. Reaching a chair her legs tottered and gave way.
She had broken one of God’s commandments.
All the sins that had harassed every year of her life faded into nothingness compared with this - this monstrous wickedness.
To think that only an hour ago she had been sitting here alone believing herself to be dangerously near a suicidal level of worry.
Since Melvin had gone she had somehow lost her grip on life. Old Mr MacNair and her mother between them had taken the reins.
Her father-in-law was becoming more and more of a whiner, harping on continuously about everything from the rotten weather and bad-paying customers to stupid nyucks in the government who’d got every one into another ruinous war.
If he was not complaining, he was depressing her with tales of disaster and death. He studied the evening paper’s Deaths column with avid interest, often reading each announcement to her word for word, and had even indignantly complained on one occasion:
‘There’s only two deceased tonight!’
Apart from upsetting her, she felt sure the old man’s conversation must have a bad effect on the children.
She confided in her mother and pleaded for adv
ice, only to have the children promptly wrenched away from her.
‘But, Mummy, you can’t take them to stay at your place,’ she had protested in panic. ‘What will I do without them?’
‘Oh, be quiet!’ Her mother’s face twisted in disgust. ‘I’m sick of your selfish whining. You’re as bad as that man.’
‘It’s not that Da means any harm. It’s just he’s getting old and …’
‘Oh, be quiet.’
Her mother turned her attention back to Andrew, nursing him, smiling fondly at him, dandling him up and down.
‘Granny’s lovely wee pettilorums, wee lovey-dovey darling - yes!’
‘Give Andrew to me, Mummy.’
Feeling suddenly afraid, Catriona stuck out her hands.
‘Please, I want him.’
‘You’re a wicked, selfish girl. What do you care if this poor infant’s buried alive?’
‘Buried alive?’ Her eyes were enormous.
‘This is the most dangerous place in Glasgow. May God in his infinite mercy help and protect you.’
‘I want my baby.’
Catriona made a grab at Andrew and tried to pull him forcibly from the strong muscular arms, but was knocked back as Andrew let out a machine-gun panic of squeals.
‘You wicked, wicked girl. Now look what you’ve done.’
Her mother began pacing the floor, bouncing Andrew against her buxom chest.
‘Never mind that bad Mummy, lovey. Granny won’t let that Mummy touch Granny’s wee lovey again.’
Following her mother about the room, trembling with agitation, Catriona repeated over and over again:
‘I want my baby. I want my baby.’
‘Get out of the way,’ her mother commanded. ‘I’m taking these children to where they’ll be safe and with the Good Lord’s help properly looked after.’
‘I can look after them and they’ll be as safe here as in Farmbank.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense! There’s only a council housing scheme in Farmbank. Why would the Germans want to bomb that? May God in His infinite mercy forgive you! You are putting your own selfish desires before the safety and well-being of these children. Come on, Fergus, you carry Granny’s message bag.’
She swung round again. ‘And you,’ she said, ‘had better pack a case with their things and bring it over to me at Farmbank after you’ve seen to the old man’s tea tonight. I’m warning you, Catriona, God has His own way of working. He’ll punish you for your wicked selfishness. Something terrible is going to happen to you or to someone you love.’
The Breadmakers Saga Page 28
