‘He’s so modest too, Malcy. Just wait till you meet him.’
The two men shook hands and after warmly welcoming Malcy, Nicholas turned to Granny. ‘And how are you, Granny?’
‘Fine, son. An’ how’s yersel?’
‘Well, I’m glad to say I’ve a lot more time now. I’m no longer with the Home Guard. I’ve still to see to my strip of back garden though.’
Teresa nodded. ‘Yes, it looks as if food’s going to be scarce for a long time yet. Only the other day I waited for hours in the biggest queue I’ve ever seen. I stood there …’ Teresa was off on her favourite theme.
Malcy allowed his mind to drift. He wondered how Joe and Pete were. He now hoped that they would be kept down south for as long as possible. He couldn’t see them fitting very easily into civilian life here. If he felt a stranger in Glasgow, how much worse would Joe and Pete feel after all they’d been through. He suspected that it would take them years to get over their experiences, no matter where they were. Maybe they never would.
It suddenly occurred to Malcy that maybe he wouldn’t either. But he knew he had to make the effort. He took a deep breath and attempted to join in the conversation, or at least to look interested. A couple of times he caught Wincey’s eye. He remembered that straight, deep, determined look. His heart became heavy again. He didn’t know what to think about Wincey any more. He was fond of her, had been for some time now. How could he not be when she’d been so kind and loyal and supportive in writing to him so often?
She still looked the same, with her fringed red hair and delicate sprinkling of freckles. That strong steady gaze was certainly the same as he remembered it. She was some girl. He’d always thought so. Later she came over and sat beside him. The others were through in the kitchen sampling the food and drink that Virginia had set out ready.
‘A buffet supper,’ Florence had explained. ‘One just helps oneself.’
He had just put a spoonful or two of potato salad on his plate, lifted a glass of wine and returned to the sitting room. Wincey had been the first to follow him through.
‘We never get a chance to talk on our own,’ Wincey said. ‘How about me taking you out tomorrow to, say, the Central Hotel for supper. They have a nice lounge there where we can relax with a drink after the meal and talk as long as we like.’
After a second or two’s hesitation, Malcy said, ‘Yes, all right.’ The truth was he just wanted to be on his own. He needed time to at least try to free his mind from the horrors still milling around in it. Dead men on land and sea still returned in his nightmares to haunt him, along with the living dead of the concentration camps. It was too soon to get back to normal. He didn’t know how to do it. The next day, however, there was no getting out of the date with Wincey. Everyone colluded with it.
‘Come on now, son.’ Teresa encouraged. ‘It’s what you need, to get out more. Wincey’ll take you a wee drive around Glasgow and it’ll make you feel really at home again.’
‘Aye,’ Erchie said. ‘Ah bet many a time ye’ve dreamt about the dear green place.’
He supposed he had.
‘Away ye go, the pair o’ ye,’ Granny said. ‘Enjoy yersels.’
They didn’t speak in the car and Malcy was grateful for the silence. She drove round George Square and he was as impressed as he always had been with the magnificent architecture of the City Chambers. They passed Hutcheson Hall with its clock and steeple and the City and Courts building, with its twenty-nine bays along one side. The Robert Adam Trade House he knew well. All the buildings in Virginia Street too. Malcy remembered the tales he had heard as a schoolboy—of how this part of the city had been developed as a result of the tobacco trade with America. In Royal Exchange Square there was a magnificent building that had once been a mansion of one of the tobacco lords.
Familiarity brought a trickle of pleasure moving slowly through his veins, relaxing him. Everything he saw reminded him of some distant memory, some bit of folklore about his beloved city. They passed the point where Argyle Street was bridged by the Central Station. With a smile of recognition on his face, he recalled how that part of the street was known as the ‘Heilanman’s Umbrella’—because at one time it had been a meeting place for Highlanders on wet days.
The elaborate Victorian ironwork of the entrance to the Central Station signalled the end of their journey. They parked the car and went up the steps into the Central Hotel.
Malcy and Wincey strolled in together, still in complete silence. Eventually she said, ‘Do you fancy a drink before dinner?’
‘Fine by me.’
They went upstairs to a lounge with a bar and settled in a quiet corner with their drinks.
Another silence, then she said, ‘Are you glad I wrote to you while you were away?’
He stared at her in surprise. ‘Of course. Your letters meant a lot to me.’
‘Did they?’
‘Yes, they did.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I think we got to know each other a lot better through them, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, remembering the letters now, and how their tone and contents gradually grew warmer, more intimate.
‘For me it was a release, in a way,’ she said. ‘It’s funny how much easier it is to express yourself in writing than it is face to face.’
‘You’re doing all right,’ he said with a smile.
To her it was only the ghost of the cheeky grin she remembered from so long ago but she said, ‘You’re still the same.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not the same person I was, Wincey.’
She nodded, then fixed him with one of her serious, concentrated stares.
‘And I’m not the same woman that I was.’ She tucked a stray lock of her auburn hair behind an ear. ‘I’ve been thinking …’ Her stare clung earnestly to him as she went on. ‘How about if you booked us a room here for tonight. That way we could have a chance to find out more about the new Malcy and the new Wincey.’
He studied her in silence for a minute or two. Then he half laughed and shook his head at her.
‘Wincey!’
‘Don’t you dare turn such a good offer down,’ she said.
His smile returned again, still faint and ghostly, but a smile all the same. ‘I know the war has had an effect on me, Wincey, but it’s not made me that daft.’
‘Fine then.’ She raised her glass. ‘Cheers!’
He shook his head again and helplessly repeated, ‘Wincey!’
But as he raised his glass to hers, he began to feel better.
Other B & W Titles
by Margaret Thomson Davis
A Darkening of the Heart
A Deadly Deception
Burning Ambition
Double Danger
Goodmans of Glassford Street
Light and Dark
The Breadmakers Saga
The Clydesiders
The Dark Side of Pleasure
The Glasgow Belle
The Gourlay Girls
The Kellys of Kelvingrove
The New Breadmakers
The Tobacco Lords Trilogy
Write from the Heart
COPYRIGHT
First published 2002
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL
www.blackandwhitepublishing.com
This electronic edition published in 2014
ISBN: 978 1 84502 803 9 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 90326 510 9 in hardcover format
Copyright © Margaret Thomson Davies 2002
The right of Margaret Thomson Davies to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP ca
talogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay
Clydesiders at War Page 22
