by Maggie Craig
‘But if you haven’t got the time, Eddie...’
Liz smiled regretfully. She ought to be in pictures. And she had given him a legitimate excuse to visit the Gallaghers. It took him five seconds to close his books and follow her.
Edward MacMillan and Conor Gallagher went at it hammer and tongs for a good forty minutes, putting the world to rights according to their own respective political philosophies. They covered it all: the current crisis and what had caused it, Appeasement, the rise of the Nazis in Germany, the civil war in Spain, the inadequacies of the current British government, the Irish Question.
On some points they were in agreement, on others they argued from diametrically opposed points of view. Inevitably, the discussion came back to the crisis in Czechoslovakia.
‘But people say the Sudeten Germans have been persecuted by the Czechs,’ said Conor. ‘That they want to be part of Germany.’
‘If Hitler takes the Sudetenland, he’ll take the rest of Czechoslovakia,’ insisted Eddie. ‘And he’ll not stop there.’
Brendan Gallagher, tolerant by nature, eventually called time on the two young men. ‘Enough! Let’s have some music.’
Eddie joined in enthusiastically with the songs, especially when it came to the Irish republican ones. Any louder, thought Liz, and we’ll all get arrested for treasonable behaviour.
Then the Gallagher lads, who had clubbed together to buy a Paul Robeson songbook at the concert, performed some of the songs they’d heard. Joe had the deepest voice, so he sang Ol’ Man River. Then Danny, Conor and Dominic gave the assembled company Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. After they had finished, Helen stood up to sing.
At first she sang her party piece, the hauntingly beautiful She Moved Through the Fair. She really had a lovely voice, sweet but strong, surprisingly low-pitched and mellow.
She said this to me,
And then she did say,
It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day.
Conor nudged Liz’s elbow. With a discreet lift of his head he indicated that she should look at Eddie, who was sitting on the opposite side of the room from them. Leaning forward, his chin propped on his fist, he was giving Helen his complete attention, his serious grey eyes fixed intently on her.
‘We heard this song at the Paul Robeson concert, too,’ Helen told her parents. She didn’t look at Eddie, but as soon as Liz heard the first line, she knew that Helen was singing it for him.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you or I,
But Joe, said I, you’re ten years dead,
Said Joe, I didn ’t die...
If Eddie had looked entranced before, he looked completely moonstruck now. Any doubts Liz had vanished at that moment. Helen’s growing feelings for her brother were completely reciprocated.
Seventeen
A few days later, Liz walked up to Radnor Street. She had arranged to meet Helen there. She took the brown georgette dress with her. Having made sure she arrived before her friend, she asked Peter MacMillan for a coat hanger, took the dress out of the Copland & Lye bag and hung it on the back of the door.
Coming through that same door ten minutes later, Miss Gallagher guessed immediately that something was up. She’d often told Liz that she was no good at either telling lies or keeping a secret. It always showed on her face. Peter MacMillan was smiling broadly, happy to be party to the plot. That helped give the game away too.
Looking around for it, whatever it was, Helen spotted the dress.
‘Oh no, Liz. I’ve told you. When I’ve got the money to pay you for it. Not before.’
‘Phooey! I don’t want a penny piece for it, and you know that fine well, Helen Gallagher.’
Helen started shaking her fair head, but Liz waltzed over to the door, lifted the dress down and held it against her friend, pushing her over to stand in front of the small mirror which hung on the wall opposite the range.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘you can only see your top half, but even at that you can see how much it suits you. Don’t you think so, Grandad?’
‘I do.’ He smiled fondly at the two girls. ‘It’s the right shade for your colouring, lass,’ he said to Helen.
‘I never knew you were a fashion expert, Mr MacMillan. Did she put you up to this?’ she asked, glancing at Liz in the mirror.
‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’ Liz replied sweetly. ‘Grandad’s got eyes like the rest of us. He can see that the dress is all wrong for me and all right for you. Isn’t that right, Grandad?’ she asked, spinning herself and Helen round to face him.
‘Absolutely, pet.’ He smiled at Helen. ‘Hen, you’re a wee smasher whatever you wear, but you’ll be a right bobby-dazzler in yon frock.’
Liz could sense Helen’s resolve weakening. Time to wheel out the big guns. She spun them both round once more to the mirror. ‘You could go to the dancing if you had it.’
‘Mmm,’ murmured Helen, as noncommittal as possible.
‘My brother Eddie’s a good dancer, you know.’
Helen gave their combined reflections one of her stern looks. ‘Oh, really? How terribly fascinating. Although I can’t imagine why you think that piece of information should interest me.’
Liz could be arch too. ‘Can’t you? You know, for an intelligent woman you can be very stupid sometimes.’
The wireless was on when Liz got home. She could hear the strains of dance music as she walked up the front path. Lifting the brass door knocker shaped like a lion’s head, she gave it three sharp raps.
She should really have a key, but her father had decreed that she had to wait until she was twenty-one. Eddie had been given his own key when he had started at the Uni at the age of seventeen. He was a boy, of course. That made all the difference as far as her father was concerned.
She heard her mother’s footsteps approaching from the other side of the door. Sadie MacMillan swung it open, her face alive with animation.
‘Och, Lizzie,’ she cried, seizing her daughter by the arm to pull her into the lobby, ‘come away ben to the kitchen. We’re having a right laugh!’
In the kitchen Liz found Eddie steering Mrs Crawford round the linoleum floor, the square table pushed back against the sink and the window which overlooked the back garden. She was laughing and protesting, but obviously enjoying herself.
‘Here’s your sister,’ she called out. ‘You’d be better dancing with her than with an old woman like me.’
‘Not at all, Mrs C,’ Eddie said gallantly. He put on a terrible French accent. ‘It eez you for who my ‘art she beat faster - not my leetle seester - lovely though she eez.’
He threw a grin at Liz. She returned it. It was good to see him playing the fool.
Mrs Crawford snorted with mirth, pushed Eddie away and collapsed on to one of the kitchen chairs, laughing and putting her hand to her bosom. It was heaving with exertion and amusement, straining the buttons of her flowery print blouse.
‘I’d better sit down before I fall down!’ She laughed up at Sadie MacMillan. Then she looked at Liz.
‘Well, Lizzie, did you not get a lumber tonight?’
Liz took off her hat and coat, laughing. She liked Annie Crawford. She might be the wife of one of the senior managers but she was really down to earth.
‘Hardly, Mrs Crawford, I was up at my grandfather’s this evening - although we were dancing, right enough. A friend of mine who lives nearby came round and we were teaching ourselves how to do the Lambeth Walk.’
Liz smiled at the memory. After she’d persuaded Helen to accept the dress, the two of them had ended up in a fit of the giggles when they had tried to work out how to do the steps of the year’s dance craze from diagrams on the back of some sheet music.
Peter MacMillan had joined in with the impromptu dance class, causing even more hilarity, exacerbated by the difficulties of trying to do a dance which involved lots of walking steps in such a small kitchen.
Excusing herself for a moment, Liz went out to the
lobby to hang up her coat and hat. Eddie followed her out.
‘Did you have a nice evening, Liz?’
‘Yes thanks.’
‘How’s Grandad?’
‘He’s fine.’
‘Good... I’m glad to hear it...’
She wasn’t cruel enough to keep him dangling any longer. ‘Don’t you really want to know how Helen is, Eddie?’
His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Every time you look at each other,’ Liz said softly. ‘Did the two of you think I was blind?’
He continued to look ruefully at her. Then realization dawned.
‘You just asked if the two of us—’ He broke off, obviously arrested by the thought.
Liz nodded encouragingly. He’d get there in a minute. He got there in three seconds.
‘You really think she likes me?’
‘I know she does.’
Watching the happiness spread over his face, Liz thought about how she had wrestled with herself over encouraging this romance. Oh God, the two of them had a rough and rocky road ahead of them, but she knew one thing. It was going to happen whether she helped it along or not. Eddie’s grey eyes were sparkling like silver.
‘What does she say about me?’
‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out. But I’ve made her take my georgette dress so she can go to the dancing. She’ll maybe be needing a partner. Do you think?’
Eddie’s smile was cautious. Liz poked him in the chest.
‘Ask her out, you great numpty.’
He grinned at the affectionate insult, but then his smile faded. Standing in the lobby looking at his sister, he sighed and ran a hand through his dark locks.
‘She and I - well, we haven’t exactly got off to a very good start, have we? Every time we-meet the sparks seem to fly.’
‘And does that not tell you something, Eddie? Ask her out,’ she said again.
‘I’m scared she’ll say no, Liz,’ he confessed.
‘She’ll not say no.’
Eddie’s grin spread from ear to ear. Liz put a hand on his arm.
‘Promise me one thing. When you go out with her, try to restrain yourself from banging on about religion being the opium of the masses, and don’t talk to her like you’re addressing a political meeting.’
He had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I’ll do my best. How about if I ask her to go dancing at the weekend? You could come too, Liz.’
She guessed that the invitation had been issued on a surge of affection for her. That gave her a nice warm feeling. It didn’t mean she was going to accept.
‘No thanks,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll paddle my own canoe if you two start going out together. I have absolutely no desire to play gooseberry, brother dear.’
‘Well,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘why don’t you and I have a wee dance now?’ Grabbing her hand, he waltzed her back into the kitchen. ‘Pretend I’m about to ask you up on to the floor,’ he murmured. ‘Ma’s been having a good laugh this evening. Let’s keep it going a bit longer.’
Throwing herself into the role, Liz stood leaning against the kitchen wall, arms folded, adopting an air of boredom. Eddie swaggered up to her. The two older women, seated now at the kitchen table, leaned forward in anticipation.
‘Hi, gorgeous,’ said Eddie. ‘Where have you been all my life?’
Liz looked him up and down without speaking, the picture of contemptuous young west-of-Scotland womanhood.
‘D’ye come here often?’ asked the eager young man.
‘Only in the mating season,’ replied Liz, lifting her hand and pretending to examine her nails.
Mrs Crawford laughed.
‘Are ye dancing?’ Eddie said.
Liz gave him the traditional reply.
‘Are ye asking?’
‘I’m asking.’
‘Then I’m dancing.’
They kept up the patter as he birled her around the floor. ‘Could I see you home after this wee soirée?’ He gave it the local pronunciation – swarry - stretching the letters of the word out as far as they would go.
‘Aye,’ said Liz, exaggerating her accent ‘Why no’?’
‘Where d’ye live, doll?’ he asked.
Sadie chuckled.
‘Helensburgh,’ said Liz, naming the little resort on the Firth of Clyde, thirty miles away down the river.
Her swain let go of her abruptly.
‘Helensburgh! It’s no’ a lumber you need, hen.’ Eddie paused for effect before delivering the punch-line. ‘It’s a pen-pal.’
Mrs Crawford gave a great hoot of laughter. The upright chair in which she sat creaked in protest as she leaned back.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘That pair should be on the stage, Sadie. I haven’t laughed so much in ages!’
‘Will you have another wee cup of tea, Annie?’ Sadie was beaming, basking in the praise of her beloved children.
Liz and Eddie exchanged a private smile. Then Eddie, one ear cocked to the wireless, grabbed his sister’s hand again.
‘It’s the tango. Come on, Liz!’
They danced cheek to cheek, exaggerating the movements and turns. Eddie, playing the Latin lover to perfection, swung Liz back over his arm at the appropriate moments. Brother and sister gave each other smouldering glances all the while, until they couldn’t keep it up any longer and could hardly dance for laughing.
The next day it was announced on the wireless that the Prime Minister had flown to Germany for crisis talks with Herr Hitler about the Czechoslovakian situation.
Neville Chamberlain made three separate visits to Germany during the last fortnight of September 1938, during which period it felt like the whole country was holding its breath. At the same time, feverish activity was going on. Defensive trenches were dug in Britain’s towns and cities, plans for evacuating children from the industrial areas were scrutinized and the promised gas masks finally appeared.
Some folk took one look and said they couldn’t. They would feel as if they were choking and the smell of the rubber would make them feel sick.
Liz could see what they meant. The masks had a sinister appearance which gave everyone the heebie-jeebies. Their very existence was depressing, making the threat which had hung over the country all summer that much more real. How awful that one civilized European country was actually contemplating releasing such a terrible weapon upon another.
Children were to have their own versions of the respirators, known as Mickey Mouse masks. It was recommended that mothers play a short game with their children each day to get them used to putting on the claustrophobic devices. There was some concern over how babies were to be protected, and there were no respirators for cats or dogs.
The atmosphere was curious: a mixture of ill-concealed nervousness, gallows humour and a feeling of something like relief that the threatened showdown with Germany might be coming at last.
Clydebank appreciated the seriousness of the situation - if it hadn’t done so before - when it was deemed impossible for the King to come north to launch the new liner waiting to go into the river at John Brown’s. Fortunately it was considered that his wife might be spared, although the launch was a low-key affair. The Queen gave the new ship her own - and Liz’s - name.
‘They’ll not be able to bomb us,’ some folk said, trying to reassure themselves and others. ‘We’re too far away. Their planes would never be able to carry enough fuel. And how would they find the Clyde among all the other rivers and lochs on the west coast? I feel sorry for the Londoners, though. Germany’s only a hop, skip and a jump away from them. And London’s that big ye cannae miss it.’
Hundreds of thousands of Britons decided in the last fortnight of September 1938 that it was high time they made their wills. Tam Simpson was one of them. His wife went her dinger about that.
‘A will! He thinks he should write his will!’
‘You don’t think it’s a good idea, Mrs Simpson?’ asked Helen.
&nbs
p; ‘He’s got nothing to leave, pet. Apart from a few empty whisky bottles, that is.’ Nan curled her lip. ‘That’s what I said to him. And do you know what he said to me? Do you know what Thomas Simpson had the black effrontery to say to me?’
Helen shook her head. The conversation was ostensibly between her and Tam’s aggrieved wife, but everybody was listening in. Behind Nan’s head, Liz and Janet were making apologetic faces at Helen, thankful that the older woman had caught her and not them. The tirade had been going on for some time.
‘What did he say, Mrs Simpson?’ asked Helen politely.
‘He said he wants to leave me and the weans comfortable if he gets bombed. So, says I to him, we’ve never been comfortable afore. Why should it bother you now? Especially if you’re deid? If you get bombed, says I, we’ll probably a’ get bombed tae. None o’ us’ll be very bloody comfortable then. Sure we’ll no’, hen?’
She paused for breath, looking to Helen for confirmation.
‘Probably not,’ she obliged.
Mrs Simpson drew herself up, the picture of embattled womanhood. ‘My man seems to think Adolf Hitler himself is making a wee special bomb with Tam Simpson written on it - one that’ll get him and leave the rest of us alone.’ She gave a magnificent sniff. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
Despite Tam Simpson’s worries, Adolf Hitler was rather tied up with his own concerns. He was determined to have the Sudetenland. Only Britain, France and Russia, who’d all promised to help Czechoslovakia in the event of a German attack, stood in his way. German public opinion didn’t seem to.
At a huge rally in Nuremberg at the beginning of September he had spoken of atrocities perpetrated against the German-speaking inhabitants of Sudetenland by the Czechs.
Most honest people weren’t sure whether to believe those stories or not, but Neville Chamberlain and his civil servants were getting very fed up with the long-drawn-out negotiations and the stubbornness of the people they referred to as those Czechos.
