Voices in the Street

by Maureen Reynolds

  The next few days were a frenzy of planning. Ally asked his pal Davie Gray to be best man and it was decided it would just be the four of us, plus Mum and George and Ally’s family. On my way to work every morning, I passed Paige’s fashion shop in the High Street and I had seen the ideal outfit. It was a dress and bolero in thick cream moiré with self-coloured embroidery around the neckline which made it very dressy. I thought it was really swish looking and of course the assistant, who was probably on commission, agreed.

  My headgear was a cream-coloured half-hat which was all the rage at the time. This style gripped your head in a vice-like claw but it was fashionable and that was the selling point. Like Pat, I also had brown shoes and a handbag like a small shoebox. In all, it looked like it was going to be a ‘brown do’.

  Mum decided on a menu of home-made soup, steak pie and trifle for the wedding meal and it was agreed that I would buy the food and she would make it. Ally had baked a lovely two-tiered wedding cake with a bride and groom on the top.

  A few days before the big event I decided to undergo the ordeal of another Eugene Permanent Wave in order to have some fetching curls under the vice-like grip of the half hat. Unknown to me, the girls at work were planning a surprise. After work on my last day, Mr Alf made a lovely speech as he presented me with a pile of gifts – blankets, a clock and other useful presents. I was quite overcome.

  Margaret, Nan and Pat then approached with a voluminous tablecloth which they quickly wrapped round me and a baby’s potty was thrust into my hand. With Pat dressed as the minister and carrying a bible in her hand, we all set off for Moncur Crescent via half the city’s streets and byways which were full of pedestrians. They gazed at this motley band of noisily singing women with amusement and I was grateful for the camouflaging, all-enveloping tablecloth. Bringing up the rear, with one of Wallace’s silver-plated trays in her hands, was Nan. She kept banging a soup ladle against the metal surface and the noise was deafening. By the time we reached my house, we could hear the tuneful strains of Guy Mitchell singing about his ‘Truly, Truly Fair’ from Mrs Ferrie’s radiogram.

  Nan managed to pick up the beat of the song with her ladle and tray and we were soon belting out the words along with Mr Mitchell. It was hard to guess who was the loudest but I reckoned Nan won the contest by more than a few decibels. In fact, Mum said she heard us a good fifteen minutes before we put in an appearance.

  Once inside the house I was overcome again when I saw the spread of sandwiches and savoury titbits. As well as helping to organise the party, Margaret and some of the girls had spent their time off that morning helping Mum with the food. Later on, when the party was in full swing, Ally and his pals arrived from their stag night. As usual, the talk got round to Miss Kelly’s wedding and the fact that she was having two ceremonies on two different days.

  Mum put her thoughts in a nutshell: ‘Two ceremonies! Thank the Lord we just have the one – what with the cost of everything.’

  As for me, well, being young and daft, I was really quite chuffed that my wedding was to be the day after this exotic film star’s one, even though we were miles apart in everything, including money, looks and the glamorous location of Monaco and Monte Carlo.

  On the penultimate day, I did a quick check on the plans and everything seemed to be going well. I had my curls, frock and cake in that order and the food was in the kitchen waiting to be cooked. The buttonholes were due to be picked up the following morning and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for the seemingly smooth end to three weeks’ planning.

  Looking back, I think it was this smug complacency that brought down the wrath of the gods on the entire day. As it was, I should have recognised the signs which had been evident all week. Mum had been complaining of toothache for a few days but she said it was just a twinge.

  Neighbours had been coming to the door all week with small, paper-wrapped parcels. ‘This is just a wee minder for your wedding,’ they said as they sat down to a cup of tea and a sandwich. Before joining the company, Mum had to take a couple of aspirins or an Askit powder to help with this small ‘twinge’ of hers.

  Aggie called, fresh from her Californian jaunt, with her suntan and blue-rinsed hair. On that occasion Mum was so speechless that she almost forgot to take her painkillers. Aggie took two minutes to hand over the present and two hours to gabble on about the joys of her holiday. ‘Eh’m telling you, Molly, if you ever get the chance to go to America then you should make the effort,’ she said, touching her blue curls. ‘And this rinse is all the rage over there. Nobody’s got grey hair in the USA. It’s got to have a tint through it and maybe you should try one yourself.’

  Mum, who would sooner have faced an executioner’s axe than have blue hair, had her mind on other things, namely her teeth.

  ‘Did Babs come back with you?’ she asked, hoping to make a quick dash to the kitchen and the bottle of oil of cloves.

  ‘No, she’s staying on for a wee while longer. In fact, she’s thinking of applying for a work permit so maybe she’ll no come back. Senga and Marvin are so good to her.’

  This small toothache twinge, as Mum put it, was obviously just biding its time to blossom forth into a full-scale issue and it happened the day before the wedding. Mum came home from work, almost passing out from the pain, and her jaw looked swollen and painful. We made a quick journey down to Doctor Jacob’s surgery and waited while a multitude of ailments passed through his door.

  When it was our turn, his diagnosis was clear. ‘You’ve got a large abscess on your gum.’

  He handed over a prescription for penicillin and warned her, ‘When this infection dies down I want you to go to the dentist to get that bad tooth out.’

  Mum, who at that moment would have agreed to anything, nodded glumly. She had an obsession, bordering on a phobia, about dentists. In fact, I could remember an incident years before when, during my childminding days with Cathie, she had paid a visit to the Dental School in Roseangle to have a tooth removed. Cathie and I had been quietly sitting in the waiting room when a brown blur darted past and rocketed out the door. Mum had taken one look at the equipment and the drill in particular before taking to her heels.

  The doctor said the penicillin would take a day or two to work, which wasn’t good news. She was almost banging her head against the wall with the pain and she went to bed with a cold wet towel pressed against her painful jaw. I decided to make the soup that night to save time the next morning and, fortunately, we had bought a ready-made steak pie from the butcher’s. The trifle didn’t take long to prepare and I went to bed with the hope that Mum’s face would be less painful the next day.

  It wasn’t and she said she felt worse. I didn’t know what to do but, feeling I had to carry on regardless, I set off for the florist’s shop in the City Arcade. The girl behind the counter gave me an odd look when I mentioned the four buttonholes.

  She picked up a large jotter and scanned the pencilled list. She gave me another look and slowly ran her finger down the page.

  ‘Your name’s down here but it’s been cancelled.’

  I was annoyed.

  ‘What do you mean, cancelled? Eh ordered them last week and Eh certainly didn’t cancel them. In fact, the wedding is this afternoon.’

  She drew her finger down the list again and shook her head, ‘Well, Eh’m sorry but your name’s been scored out which means you’ve been cancelled.’

  By this time I was beginning to think being scored out might not be such a bad thing if it would remove me from this stalemate. Then I had a brainwave. ‘Can Eh speak to someone in charge, please?’

  She gave this request some thought before disappearing around a high-shelved unit full of flowers. I could hear her whispered conversation with some invisible person.

  ‘She says she never cancelled them but her name’s been scored out.’

  I thought if I heard the words ‘cancelled’ and ‘scored out’ again, I would scream. The stage whispers were still going on. ‘Well, Eh don’t k
now who scored out her name but the buttonholes aren’t done.’

  The girl suddenly appeared with an older woman who was obviously unhappy. She approached with an apologetic smile. ‘Eh’m awfy sorry but there seems to be some mix up with your flowers. Somebody must have rung up to cancel and your name got scored out by mistake.’

  I was sorry too – and a bit angry as well. ‘Eh need them now and Eh can’t come back.’

  ‘The problem is,’ said the older woman, ‘that we have a big wedding order to do – lots of elaborate bouquets – and we don’t have time to do yours.’

  Full of disappointment, my face fell at this dire news and on seeing this, the woman wrote down a message on a paper bag and sent me to a warehouse that lay alongside the docks.

  ‘Take this to a woman there and maybe she can help you.’

  By now the morning was going in so fast that I practically ran to the warehouse and handed over my piece of paper. The woman scanned it and shook her head. ‘We’ve got this big wedding order to finish but Eh’ll do my best.’

  There was a small chair wedged in between a high stack of Fyffes banana boxes and I waited for a miserable hour while the big bouquets were expertly entwined. Someone was obviously having a grand big wedding in Dundee that day. Three cheers for them, I thought. I waited impatiently for my four paltry buttonholes, thinking darkly that Grace Kelly wouldn’t have had this problem.

  I was back home for twelve-thirty to find Mum bravely trying to get going in the kitchen but George and I made her sit in the living room with a cup of tea. The potatoes needed to be peeled, the table set and the kitchen floor washed.

  Then Uncle Charlie arrived in the middle of the chaos, clutching an electric iron as a wedding gift. At that moment I would have given anything to see Auntie Nora and get her expert help at our moment of crisis but Charlie explained that the present wasn’t supposed to be delivered until after the wedding but he happened to be passing. Also appearing on the scene was Pat, all ready to do her bridesmaid’s duties. By then the kitchen floor was washed.

  During the weeks leading up to my big day, I had been browsing through a magazine that contained ‘A Bride’s Countdown to the Altar’. This article had never mentioned being down on your knees washing the kitchen floor amongst the manicures, facials and hairdos. Also, everyone appeared to be relaxed and elegant amidst the champagne glasses and I didn’t recall one bride surrounded by pots of steaming potatoes or trying to seat eight people around a table designed for four.

  Fortunately, although I did try hard to persuade Uncle Charlie to stay, he said he had to be home which meant I had the luxury of an empty space at the table. To be quite honest, I almost called the whole thing off but didn’t know how to cancel a wedding. Where do you start?

  Ally’s mum arrived and when she saw how ill Mum looked she said she would stay at home with her and let the four of us go to the manse. As Pat and I piled into the taxi beside the groom and best man I felt I had spent the morning at the ‘steamie’ because of my red, flustered face. So much for elegance and beauty and calm radiance!

  Still, by the time we reached Albany Terrace I felt a bit better. And the sun was shining at least. The wedding ceremony was held in a room with a high ceiling and book-lined walls. Although it was a simple service it was very moving.

  When we stepped down the path, we were delighted to see some of our friends waiting on the pavement to congratulate us. We made a quick stop at the photographer’s studio in Lindsay Street for a few photos. I would have loved the photographer to have come to the house but it was too expensive and we settled for a few conventional and stilted photos plus some amateur snapshots back at the house.

  Because we had no flashbulb attachment, it meant all the snaps had to be taken outdoors and we streamed out into the back green. The cake had to have this alfresco treatment as well, so we carefully carried it out on its small table and all took turns to pose beside it, trying to look cool and relaxed but still managing to appear as nonchalant as a group of Eskimos in a heatwave.

  As usual, Mum thought about the neighbours. ‘Everyone will be wondering what we’re doing standing around a cake,’ she said, no doubt desperately hoping that no one was peeping from behind the long sweeping wall of curtained windows. Someone, I can’t remember who, joked that if we had known about this mass movement of people and cake, we would have hired Pickford’s removal van.

  In spite of the morning’s hassle, the meal went down well, I think, with a good deal of laughing and jostling around the small table. The cake was then cut and a small slice passed around with cups of tea. Mum, who now felt the edge taken off her pain by the antibiotics, said, ‘What a big cake for just the seven of us! We could each get a quarter.’

  Actually, I think the meal was substantial with home-made scotch broth made with a marrowbone, followed by the steak pie with the famous potatoes. We were all stuffed.

  It was now time to leave for our trip to Butterstone, a tiny hamlet situated between Dunkeld and Blairgowrie. Ally’s sister Jessie and her husband Dave lived there and we had planned to spend a few days with them. Because we were unhappy at the thought of leaving Mum with her toothache problems, we offered to stay.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, ‘Eh’m feeling a wee bit better and it’s no like last night when Eh thought my head was going to explode.’

  Ally’s mum, Peggy, nodded in sympathy and she said she would pop down to see her during the week. With that final problem settled and Pat and Davie in attendance, we made our way by tramcar to the bus station in Lindsay Street to await our transport to Blairgowrie.

  When it arrived, we almost burst out laughing because the bus looked so ancient and dilapidated with its spartan wooden seats. The passengers were obviously old friends because they called out to one another and chatted in a close intimate way, calling each other by their first names and asking after all the families and close relations up to and including second cousins last removed.

  One woman, who had obviously been on a massive shopping spree, tried to board the bus with her multitude of parcels and paper bags. She had two shoeboxes from Birrells, three large, paper-wrapped parcels from G. L. Wilson’s department store and other innumerable bags. Because she was finding it difficult to squeeze everything through the doorway, one old man with a red-veined, weather-beaten face and a thick tweed suit with a flat bonnet sticking out from one pocket, strolled down the passage to help her. ‘Give me yon two parcels, Ina – and the shoeboxes. Heavens! You’ve been buying up the entire town by the looks of it!’

  While this was going on, a voice called from the back of the long queue, ‘Will you get a move on, Ina, or else we’ll be here all night! Heavens, woman! You need a whole bus to yourself!’

  As we stepped on board amongst these cheery rural passengers, Pat and Davie emptied two boxes of confetti over us. It blew around our heads in a whirling, multicoloured cloud and swirled up the length of the bus to finally settle on Ina’s purchases.

  ‘Now, mind and behave yourselves,’ said Pat and Davie in unison and, as thirty heads swivelled round to gaze at us, we made our way to the back of the bus with our small suitcases in tow.

  ‘Look, it’s a bride and groom!’ whooped Ina, as we squeezed past. ‘All the best of luck to you both!’

  With faces like beetroots, we sat down beside the red-faced man but he seemed more interested in his shiny brown boots than a pair of newly-weds, a preoccupation that didn’t go unnoticed by Ina. ‘Is that a new pair of boots, Tam?’ she shouted, peering across the passageway.

  ‘Aye, it is, and they cost me twenty-nine and eleven. A damn disgrace if you ask me. My last pair just cost me ten bob,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Och, aye, and how long ago was that?’ asked the spender of the year.

  This rickety bus wound its way along the narrow country road, slowly dropping its passengers off at the ends of farm tracks. Ina got off at one such road end, a road that didn’t appear to have any habitation for miles and she slowly
waddled along the dirt track as if she had all the time in the world.

  It was gloaming when we reached Blairgowrie and we discovered that our connection to Dunkeld would be in two hours’ time. By now, the sunshine had disappeared and a sharp, chilly wind was blowing the daffodils in the Wellmeadow Garden. They shone like a golden beacon in the fading light and I had to smile when I recalled the prophecy from last year. All the girls in the restaurant loved going to ‘spooky’ nights and we would all congregate in someone’s house with the fortune-teller in attendance.

  On one such night, this teller of the future turned out to be a man, which was most unusual as it was normally the domain of women. I quickly forgot most of his prophecies but one thing did stick in my mind. He said my wedding would be when daffodils were blowing in a spring breeze.

  A breeze wasn’t what I would have called this cold wind and we were both shivering. I would have loved a hot cup of tea but the only shop open appeared to sell only ice cream and sweeties. We settled for two ice-cream cones and sat on a bench to eat them.

  The Dunkeld bus was a replica of the previous one and we joined another host of farm workers and their families who had clearly been in the town for the day. Jessie and Dave lived in a lovely picturesque cottage on the hill above the hamlet. Better still, by the time we arrived to its cosy warmth, the tempting smell of supper wafted out of the kitchen.

  Our days were spent walking and exploring the sparkling lochs that lay like glittering gemstones on the fringes of this road but we did make one excursion to Pitlochry. Once again we boarded the little bus which sat for a while in the square in Dunkeld. The small white houses had a neglected look and were empty and I was disappointed because it was a lovely little square. However, I found out a few years later that they were being renovated for the National Trust and they are now cosy and attractive houses.

  We trundled along the Great North Road, which surprised me by its narrowness. Perhaps because of its grand title I expected a wide, sweeping thoroughfare, instead of this glorified lane. Ally said Pitlochry was a town full of hotels and guest houses and he wasn’t wrong.