Voices in the Street

by Maureen Reynolds

  ‘Oh, come on! It’s a long climb up all the stairs and it doesn’t take you a minute to run me up,’ I said, trying to look fragile and incapable of such a strenuous exercise.

  But he was adamant. ‘No, you’re supposed to use the stairs. This lift is for the use of customers only.’

  I was furious as I raced up the stairs, wild at him and wild at myself for wasting precious time on the stupid lift instead of getting myself clocked in. This was the only restaurant I knew where the workers had a time clock, and heaven help you if you were habitually late.

  By the time I reached the staffroom I was red-faced and mad. Hannah was still there. ‘Eh’ve no time to waste, Hannah. Eh’m late already,’ I said, lurching towards the small clock.

  ‘Don’t bother with that,’ Hannah said, ‘Eh’ve clocked you in. I saw you having an argument with the lift operator and Eh knew you wouldn’t win.’

  That’s what you think, Hannah, I thought. The next morning, wearing my best coat and shoes and a long scarf draped across my face, I swanned to the lift. ‘Take me to the Cottage Room, young man,’ I requested in my best pan-loafy voice. ‘Now, Eh’ll be going to the Cottage Room every day during my long holiday in Dundee so Eh’ll see you tomorrow and thank you.’

  He almost fell over in his haste to press the buttons. I got away with this act for about a week until he twigged and rounded on me angrily, ‘Eh’m no taking you up again! You have to use the stairs.’

  ‘Eh don’t know how he found out it was me,’ I moaned to Hannah as we stood in front of the staffroom mirror.

  Hannah laughed. ‘Eh’m surprised you got away with it for even one day because you looked just like yourself. Even your voice.’

  I was amazed. ‘Is that right?’ I said, seeing fame and fortune as an actress on a stage slowly evaporating before my eyes.

  Meanwhile, back at home, Mum had taken possession of her new dentures but she didn’t like them and was forever complaining. ‘Eh just can’t eat anything with them. Eh think Eh’ll take the bottom set out.’

  ‘Look Mum, the dentist said you had to persevere with them and no take them out to eat anything. Otherwise you’ll never get used to them.’

  Faced with this situation, she began to eat less and less and was beginning to look ill again. I told her to do what she thought suited her best, but still her appetite didn’t return. She managed to go to work every day but she was so tired that she went to bed the minute the tea was over. I was really worried. Even Nellie noticed it and urged her to see the doctor but Mum was adamant that the trouble lay with her new dentures. ‘Eh can’t eat with them, Nellie. By the time Eh’ve managed a few mouthfuls, the food is cold.’

  I tried getting round this problem by serving a very small amount and keeping the rest hot in the oven but, the minute she finished her portion, she would view the rest as a second helping. ‘Eh’ll eat it for my supper,’ she said.

  Then one day the mass X-ray van came to the dairy. Mum joined her fellow workers in the queue to be X-rayed without a worry in the world. Even when she was recalled, she told Nellie, ‘It’ll be my old pleurisy scar showing up. Eh’ve been X-rayed before and Eh got recalled then. What a worry Eh had until they told me it was just the scarring due to the pleurisy Eh had in 1947.’

  ‘Oh Eh do hope so,’ said Nellie, with a worried frown, ‘because Eh’ve been recalled as well although they did say it could be because Eh didn’t remove everything with metal in it.’

  Mum laughed. ‘You’re no wearing a bullet-proof vest, are you?’

  This cheered Nellie up and she remarked, ‘It’s easy to see what kind of pictures you like to go and see. Is it the gangster ones with Edward G. Robertson and Peter Lorre?’

  The two women, along with all the folk who had been recalled, went back for another X-ray and, as it turned out, Nellie got the all-clear but Mum was told the shattering news that there was a shadow on her lung that wasn’t anything to do with the old scar. We were devastated by this grim news, especially Mum. Doctor Jacob said it meant hospital treatment and he added, ‘This will mean a stay in Ashludie Hospital and it will be for months rather than weeks. It all depends on how fast the shadow responds to treatment.’

  As far as Mum was concerned, this was a death sentence. Wasn’t it a well-known fact that tuberculosis patients were sent to sanatoriums like Ashludie to be wheeled out into the fresh air every day, whether in rain, hail, snow or wind, in the vain hope that the elements would provide the cure? But as we all knew, a cure wasn’t always on the cards.

  She was so upset the week before her admission to hospital that Nellie, Bella and Aggie, who for once didn’t mention her family, all tried to cheer her up. But Mum had made up her mind she was being sent away to die. The manageress of the restaurant gave me the morning off to take Mum to the hospital. She had been fretting about her old dressing gown, one minute saying how tatty it was, then the next saying it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be wearing it for long.

  George and I decided to buy her a lovely red, velvet, fulllength housecoat that she had spied in Marks & Spencers and had fallen in love with. We also added a fluffy, winceyette nightdress and cosy slippers.

  ‘There now Mum, you’ll look like a real toff,’ we said, as I packed a small suitcase that Mrs Miller had lent her.

  Mrs Miller was full of sympathy as she stood and watched us leave the close. She shoved a small bag of sweets into my hand as we passed. ‘Put these barley sugars in her bag in case your mum is feeling sick on the bus.’

  With Mum giving the house and Mrs Miller a last backward glance, almost to say she wouldn’t be seeing it ever again, we set off for the bus station at Lindsay Street. Special buses ran from there right to the hospital, which was very convenient. It was possible to catch an ordinary service bus to Monifieth but that meant a long walk to the hospital which sat in its own extensive grounds above the village.

  We arrived just before dinnertime on one of the coldest, wettest days of the autumn and, as we walked through the grounds towards the main door, leaves were cascading down on to the driveway before being whisked away by a fierce wind that swirled around our ankles. I recalled the night at the railway station when Ally had left for Cyprus. The wind had blown the debris around that night and now it was the turn of the leaves and dead flowers. For a brief moment I wondered if all the sad upheavals and partings in my life were to be heralded by nasty, cold winds.

  The nurse took Mum away, holding her by the elbow while carrying her small case in her other hand. She turned as they set off along the corridor. ‘You can wait till your mother gets settled and then you can say cheerio.’

  Although this was meant in a light sense, as in ‘Cheerio, I’ll see you tomorrow’, Mum turned with a stricken look on her face and I felt terrible. I gave her little wave and said I would wait.

  I later found her lying in bed in a small, glassed veranda with a lovely view over the parklands to the sea beyond. Although the water wasn’t visible, you just knew it was there. There were five other beds in this ward but they were all vacant. I was allowed to sit for a wee while until the doctor arrived. Mum was upset but tried to hide it by chatting about the household arrangements. ‘Now you should manage all right. George usually makes his own tea so you won’t have to rush home from work for that.’

  This was fine because, with George having his early morning start, he was normally home by early afternoon, while I didn’t get finished at Draffen’s until after six o’clock at night.

  ‘Another thing,’ she said, ‘if you have any trouble with the insurance money just go to the office in Tay Street.’

  My mind was on this terribly silent ward and I hoped she wasn’t going to be left on her own all the time. If she was, her imagination would be working in treble time.

  ‘Aye, Mum, you’re not to worry about us. We’ll be fine. Now, promise me you’ll eat your meals in here and no just pick at your food.’

  She nodded, giving me a look that suggested the cook wouldn’t be needed fo
r long in her case. When the nurse came back, Mum jumped out of bed and began to put on her lovely red housecoat. The nurse started to object but Mum dismissed this.

  ‘Eh’m just going to wave to my lassie from the window.’

  ‘Eh’ll be back at visiting time tonight,’ I promised as I left the ward.

  As I walked down the drive towards the bus, I could see her red-coated figure at the window and I kept looking back and waving until she was a mere coloured dot at the far end of the wild and windswept grounds. I almost ran back to tell her to pack her small suitcase and come home with me. After all, if she was going to die then it should be at home but I didn’t.

  Back in Draffen’s, Hannah was waiting with a sympathetic ear, which was nice of her because she had her own problems. She was a divorced mother with two teenage sons to support. As usual, money was the universal problem or, rather, the lack of it. ‘Eh think there’s so much can be done with TB now. You know, new drugs,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Eh hope you’re right, Hannah!’ was all I could say. After all, she hadn’t witnessed the thin, ill figure standing at the window.

  After work, I caught the bus to the hospital and was surprised to find Nellie and Bella waiting. ‘We thought we would pay a wee visit to your mum,’ they said simply and this gesture touched me immensely. Mum may not have enjoyed good health or money but she was blessed with good friends.

  ‘How was she when you left?’ asked Nellie. I shrugged in a non-committal way. I felt I didn’t want to describe the sad figure in the red coat.

  Mum was lying in bed, dressed in her pale, winceyette nightie and looking frail and ill, her face almost the same colour as the pillow-case. However, one thing I was pleased to see was that the five other beds were now occupied. ‘Did these folk come in after you, Mum?’ I asked, glancing around the now-busy veranda with its patients and visitors.

  ‘No, they were in a day room, Eh think,’ she said. ‘They all appeared in a bunch at teatime.’

  Nellie was looking sad. ‘Are you feeling any better, Molly? Did they mention what treatment you’re getting?’

  ‘Aye, Eh’m getting dosed up with something called Streptomycin,’ she said wearily. ‘And here was me thinking all my problems were caused by my teeth. Do you mind me saying that was what caused my tired, washed-out feeling, Nellie?’

  Nellie nodded. As usual, it was left to Bella to cheer up the conversation. ‘Och, you’ll be out of here in no time. Just you wait and see.’

  CHAPTER 28

  Of all the wonder drugs in the antibiotic range, Streptomycin, which was discovered in 1944, was the magic cure for tuber-culosis. Until the 1950s, TB was still a big killer, a sword of Damocles that hung over and wiped out entire families. There was no cure except for the fresh-air treatment, which saw long rows of beds being wheeled out in all kinds of weather, including snow showers which landed like a white quilt on the patients’ beds.

  But now that Mum knew she wasn’t facing a death sentence, she cheered up considerably. Of course, she wasn’t as ill as some of the patients in the hospital, mainly because the X-ray had picked up the shadow on her lung in time to be helped by the new drug. Sadly, for people with the disease now far advanced in their lungs, the initial treatment was an operation to remove the damaged tissue. One such patient was a young girl who was at the far end of Mum’s ward.

  ‘There’s a lassie in here who says she knows you,’ said Mum, on my third visit. She lowered her voice. ‘She’s due to have an operation this week because her lung is damaged.’ She sounded sad.

  When I approached the girl’s bed, I was astounded to see Janie, my old school friend from the Rosebank Primary days. I hadn’t seen her in years because by the time we reached Primary Six her family moved to a new house. This took her away from the school and the terrible house they occupied in Rose Lane. The war had just ended and with houses difficult to come by most people took what they could get. Sometimes these dwellings were pretty bad and run down. I could still recall the day they got the key for a brand new house. Janie’s dad was telling us all about it and he was very excited. Her mum was busy making the family meal but she was as excited as the rest.

  We sat and chatted about the old days but I didn’t like to mention the forthcoming operation. I waited to see if she would bring the subject up but she didn’t. Afterwards, I wondered if she had wanted me to say something about it, but that’s life, isn’t it? You hesitate and then you lose the moment. That’s what happened with Janie and me. The final bell went for the end of visiting and I was on my way home.

  As I travelled home on the bus, I sincerely hoped everything would turn out well for her. Although she didn’t go back to Mum’s ward, I still visited her a few times and she seemed to be recovering. I never saw her again after she was discharged and I only hope she has had a long and happy life.

  Because we were contacts of a TB patient, George and I had to have regular check-ups at the Chest Clinic in Constitution Road, a building that lay right across the road from the old cemetery. During Mum’s many years in the jute mill, we had passed this brick-built building many times on our trips to Little Eddy’s but never knew what lay behind the facade. We certainly knew now. On our first visit, we were both given an X-ray but, because they were negative, we were told to report back in six months’ time.

  This was a blessing for me because I was on the hunt for a house. This chore was like searching for gold. Although I had our name down with the Corporation, we were well down on the points list. Even people with two or three children often didn’t have enough qualifying points so I reckoned my only chance lay with the private factors who rented out flats in the older types of tenements. Every day, on my time off, I did the round of these factors, mainly in Union Street and Commercial Street. The answer was always the same: ‘Nothing today, sorry.’ Some days I had to steel myself to enter the offices because the girls who were manning the type-writers always looked at me in exasperation.

  As Christmas approached, I was glad that this year was almost over. Ally still had 134 days to go and it was time to make up his festive parcel, which was sent at a cheap rate because it was going to a BFPO address. Peggy and I clubbed together to fill a large box with cake and shortbread, jam, marmalade and chocolate as well as mundane items like razor blades. Mum gave me a couple of pounds to add a wee luxury to cheer up the austere conditions of army life.

  George decided he would bake a cake for Mum. He iced it and then spent a few nights painstakingly decorating it. Piping on the ‘Merry Xmas’, he patiently formed the letters and if they went a bit askew he scraped them off and started again. I wasn’t looking forward to the festive season as this was my second Christmas alone since being married. At least Mum had been at home last year and it hadn’t felt so lonely. Fortunately, the restaurant was to be closed only for one day at Christmas and one day at Hogmanay and that didn’t leave time to mope.

  We took the finished cake to the hospital on Christmas Eve. The place was looking bright and cheerful with a decorated tree and colourful garlands hanging from the ward walls. Ashludie also had a lovely café which was used by the patients and visitors alike. Mum would meet us there as it took away the hospital atmosphere, for a short while at least. She was delighted with her cake. George apologised for the untidy lettering but she waved this aside.

  ‘Och, you’re still learning, which is no thanks to the beggars at the Sosh,’ she said, holding the cake up so it could be admired by all and sundry. ‘Now, what have you got organised for tomorrow?’

  Ally’s mum and dad had asked us for the day to their house but I felt it was too much work for Peggy, what with Anne, who was still at school, and Peggy’s two brothers Davie and Robbie. I had said we would see them later in the week. Mum was looking at George.

  ‘Are you going anywhere tomorrow?’

  George had planned to go dancing in the evening but apart from that we had nothing planned. Like me, George loved his dancing but he wanted to learn the steps properly, like
a ballroom dancer, while I had been content with the music and the company. George was to go on to take part in amateur dancing competitions with his dancing partner, Jean. They always looked so glamorous together – especially at one competition which was held at the Albert Hall in London.

  When we got back home, we had a visit from Nellie. She handed over an envelope containing three pound notes. ‘Molly was in the “menage” at work,’ she said. ‘You know, the Christmas Club. We’ve all added a wee thing to make sure you have a bit extra at this time of year.’

  I was quite overcome with this unexpected kindness. ‘Oh, Nellie, Eh don’t know what to say! It’s really good of all the workers to think of us. Tell them we said thank you very much.’

  We knew what we would buy with this windfall. Now that Mum was spending some time in the day room and the café with her fellow patients, we decided to treat her to a new skirt and blouse from G. L. Wilson’s department store. I would have liked to have gone to Draffen’s but it was too expensive and well out of our price range.

  By now, I was working in the Dining Room, which catered for a more middle-class clientele. Unlike the Cottage Room, this part of the restaurant had an à la carte menu which meant you could choose anything from the list as everything was priced individually.

  One bugbear was the table stations. Wallace’s had one of the fairest ways of dealing with the thorny issue of tips, a system in which everyone moved around the room like a giant clock and each got their fair share of good and bad tables. Draffen’s, however, had static stations which had the same waitress all the time, week in and week out. This may have seemed a trivial situation to the customers but the tips were meant to top up a low wage. Some people earned a great wage with their tips while some others were on the hardship line.

  Hannah was such a person and I often felt sorry for her as we both had rotten stations, tables tucked away in corners that were always the last to be filled. On the afternoon before Hogmanay, some of the girls decided to have a small celebration. ‘Let’s club together and buy a bottle of something,’ suggested Millie, who was a proper devil. Not only did she have the very best station in the room but she wasn’t averse to pinching the best customers if she could.