by Joan Lingard
Willa took him. ‘You’re all right, baby. I’m not going anywhere.’ He was eyeing Richard.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ said Pauline.
‘Let’s go inside,’ said Willa.
They moved to a table at the back and Richard treated them to a milkshake. Halfway through hers, Pauline excused herself to go to the ladies. ‘I’ve got a bit of a cramp in my belly. Maybe I shouldn’t be eating cold things.’
‘She’s pregnant,’ said Willa after she’d gone.
‘Oh,’ said Richard uncomfortably.
He tried to take her hand but Malcolm didn’t like it. He glowered at Richard and his face turned brick red. Willa was glad that he had not yet learnt to speak: he would not be able to go home and tell Granny about the nasty man his mummy had been with in the café.
‘When can I see you?’ asked Richard urgently. ‘Properly, I mean.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Willa helplessly.
‘Come to the library at least!’
‘I might be able to after lunch. About two o’clock. While Malcolm has his nap.’
‘Try, please, Willa love!’
‘I will, I promise!’
Pauline came back. Willa wondered if she had been sick but didn’t ask. She wasn’t looking too good. Malcolm was getting restless, having finished his ice-cream cone; he would have liked to get down to do some exploring, but the floor was not overly clean. Willa’s arms ached from trying to restrain him.
‘We’d better go,’ she said.
They parted outside the café and Richard walked on ahead of them.
‘He’s nice,’ said Pauline. ‘I can see what you see in him. Pity Tommy wouldn’t run off with some hula-hula girl in Hawaii.’
‘He can’t run off while he’s in the Navy. He’d be court-martialled.’ Unfortunately for me, thought Willa.
Coming down the hill from Bruntsfield they saw that Miss Piper was at her door. She signalled to them and they stopped when they reached her.
‘I might have some news for you!’ She sounded excited.
Willa put the brake on the pram and left it at the open door where she could watch Malcolm. He was busy tearing a pom-pom to bits.
‘Did you hear anything about Mr Smith?’ asked Pauline who, Willa thought, was looking more peely-wally by the minute. Perhaps ice cream had been a bad idea.
‘Well, I’m not sure.’ Miss Piper liked to draw out her stories. ‘But, strangely enough, after you left one of my ladies came in and she was telling me about Ernie Stapleton who calls on me – he carries a nice line of hosiery – and I wondered if by any chance you’d got the name wrong? It didn’t occur to me earlier.’
Willa thought it very possible that Pauline had been given the wrong name. When Pauline had said his surname was Smith, Willa had said, ‘Are you sure?’ and Pauline had said that loads of people were called Smith. ‘Exactly,’ had been Willa’s response.
‘What does he look like?’ asked Willa.
‘Gingery sort of hair, a small moustache, middling height for a man, I would say. Probably in his mid-forties.’
Willa looked at Pauline, who nodded.
‘Sounds like he might be the one our friend was asking about,’ said Willa. ‘So what did you hear, Miss Piper?’
‘That he’d been in a bad car accident a few weeks ago. At the junction of Queensferry Road and Princes Street. It wasn’t his fault – the other car was over the speed limit. I believe it’s only four miles an hour at that point and he was doing twenty!’
‘I knew he wouldn’t have dumped me,’ cried Pauline and then she doubled over, in evident pain. She screamed and a spate of blood gushed from between her legs.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ cried Miss Piper.
‘We’ll need to get an ambulance,’ said Willa.
‘The chemist two doors up has a telephone.’
‘Keep an eye on the baby for me, will you, Miss Piper?’ To Pauline, Willa said, ‘Hang on now. I’ll get help as quick as I can.’
The chemist offered to phone the Infirmary himself, allowing Willa to return to the haberdasher’s straightaway. Elma was there. She had noticed Malcolm sitting outside in his pram.
‘What’s going on?’ She was gazing at the blood on the floor.
‘Can’t you see?’ snapped Willa. ‘Pauline’s haemorrhaging.’
The chemist arrived to say that the ambulance was on its way and could he help?
‘Maybe you should sit down,’ he said to Pauline, who was standing in the middle of the floor trembling. There was an upright chair beside the counter for customers who were waiting to be served or had stories to tell.
‘I’m all bloody,’ said Pauline.
Miss Piper gave her chair a horrified look.
Willa put her arm round Pauline and gave her a hug. ‘It won’t be long coming.’
As she spoke they heard the wail of the siren.
By the time the ambulance pulled in to the kerb, a small crowd had gathered and was able to witness Pauline being borne out of Miss Piper’s shop on a stretcher.
‘Come with me, please, Willa,’ she begged, holding out her hand.
‘You can’t bring the baby,’ said one of the ambulance men. ‘Maybe one of these ladies wouldn’t mind looking after him?’
Willa appealed to Elma. ‘Could you wheel him down the road to Ina’s please?’
Malcolm would not like that but she had no other choice. Whenever Elma came into the house he turned his face away from her. As Willa climbed into the ambulance she saw that he was doing it now and preparing to let out a scream of annoyance. As the ambulance bore them down the hill to Tollcross and up Lauriston Place, its blue light winking and its siren bleating, she held tightly on to Pauline’s hand and prayed that Elma would cross the road carefully with the pram and manage to carry Malcolm up the stairs without his throwing himself out of her arms onto the stone steps. It was one of the things that she liked least about being a mother: being constantly jabbed by little shards of anxiety. She saw him now, arching his back, falling backwards, his head meeting the stone…Stop it! she told herself. This is ridiculous.
Pauline was whisked away on the stretcher as soon as they arrived at the hospital and Willa was asked to take a seat in the corridor. Sitting stiffly there on a hard chair, she thought of Richard waiting for her in the library, glancing up from his book whenever the door opened and each time feeling let down. She couldn’t bear the thought of his disappointment. She kept looking at her watch, the one that Tommy had given her as a wedding present. Time trickled slowly past and she wished she had something to read. After a while she began to think they’d forgotten about her and when she sought out a nurse she found that they had. Pauline had been in theatre and had had a D&C and was now back in the ward asleep.
Willa raced round to the library but Richard was not there. She couldn’t have expected him to have waited this long. It was four o’clock. She then went home to find that her imagination had not been so wildly off the mark with regards to Elma and Malcolm. He was fine now but he had led Elma a dance, said Ina, not sounding totally disapproving; she’d heard him screaming and had rushed down the stairs in time to catch him before he’d toppled out of his great-aunt’s arms onto the pavement.
‘Elma’s gey cack-handed when it comes to handling bairns, isn’t she, Malkie? You’re all right now though. Your granny saved you. So what was up with Pauline? Was it a miss?’
Willa nodded.
‘That lassie! Whose was it?’
‘Some man called Ernest. A commercial traveller. She met him at the Palais.’
Ina shook her head. ‘She’s got nae sense, that one.’
‘I find it kind of funny to think of her lying up there in the hospital and nobody in her family knowing.’
‘You’re not proposing to go round and tell Mrs Cant, are you?’
‘Certainly not!’
Malcolm was in a wild mood for the rest of the afternoon and Willa was glad when it came to bath- and bedtime.
She’d started reading him stories which he listened to quietly, trying to grab the book out of her hand only from time to time. Ina swore he was too young at nine months to understand what she was reading, but Willa knew he was not. Tonight it was the story of the three bears. He laughed when the baby bear found his porridge had been eaten all up.
‘You’re a scoundrel, aren’t you?’ said Willa, picking him up and giving him a cuddle. He felt soft and smelt of soap and baby powder.
He tumbled into sleep at once, which left the evening free for Willa, in the sense that she had no chores to do, but not to go and walk in Princes Street gardens and enjoy the air. They were having a run of good June weather. She felt too restless even to read. She picked up O Pioneers! but could not concentrate. She moved over to the window.
He was standing down there, on the opposite side of the street, staring up at their windows. She waved and he waved back. He motioned to her to come down.
She went through to the kitchen where Ina was reading the paper. She had taken off her stockings and stays; they were suspended from the pulley.
‘I was thinking I might go out for a wee breath of air. Would you keep an ear open for Malcolm for me? He’s sound asleep.’
‘On you go,’ said Ina, settling her bare feet comfortably on another chair. She needed to pare her corns. ‘Just leave the door ajar.’
Willa lifted her jacket from the hook in the hall and ran down the stairs, almost bumping into Mr MacNab in the hazy light. The stair lights came on later now that it was summer. He went on up without a word. He’d smelt of drink.
‘Don’t come close,’ said Willa, when Richard came dashing across the road to join her. ‘Everybody knows me round here.’
They turned along Brougham Place towards the Meadows and Willa told him why she had not been able to come to the library in the afternoon.
‘Poor Pauline,’ he said.
‘Yes, but maybe it’s just as well. She’d probably have had to give the baby up for adoption. She couldn’t have kept it.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘She’s got no money.’
There were a lot of people out on the wide green swards of grass, kids playing football and tag, men and women strolling, some lying on the grass. Richard said he wished they could lie on the grass; Willa said it was not possible.
‘Not much is for us, Richard.’
‘Don’t keep saying that! My mother says that if you want something badly enough you can usually find a way to get it.’
‘She wouldn’t have had you and me in mind, though.’
He had no response to that.
‘Let’s pretend we have all the time in the world,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her round by a side path which was less frequented. They had gone only a few steps before he stopped to kiss her. She had no chance, nor any desire, to protest.
As they broke apart, Willa heard a woman say, ‘Evening, Willa. It’s a nice evening, isn’t it?’
Startled, Willa turned to see a woman in a cream-coloured dress with lime-green trimmings. She was walking a tiny Pekinese.
‘How d’you like my new dog?’ asked Mrs Mooney. ‘A present. I’m calling him Geraldo.’ She gave Willa a wink. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ She looked at Richard.
‘This is Richard,’ said Willa awkwardly. ‘Richard, Mrs Mooney.’
‘Call me Maureen, Richard. Everybody does.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Richard.
‘Who was that?’ he asked after Maureen had tripped off on her three-inch heels, tugging Geraldo behind her.
‘I suppose you could say she’s about the only person in Edinburgh I don’t mind seeing us together!’ said Willa.
Back in her room, after her stolen hour with Richard, she felt uneasy, about the encounter with Mrs Mooney. She did not think the woman would tell on her, it wasn’t that, but it was as if she and Mrs Mooney were now in some way linked together. Birds of a feather. Mrs Mooney would be regarded by a lot of people as fast. A fancy woman. A bit of fluff. Willa didn’t see herself in the same light, nor did she want anyone else to see her in that way either. She was not having a good time on the side. She was in love with Richard.
But then, trying to be fair, which she had always been encouraged to do by her mother, a woman of principle, she had to admit the possibility that Mrs Mooney and Gerry might also be in love.
~ 18 ~
Esquimault and Victoria,
Vancouver Island,
British Columbia,
Canada
1st July, 1924
Dear Willa,
About a day and a half out at sea crossing from Honolulu we had a little bit of excitement when the Repulse reported that she had found a stowaway. It is seldom a stowaway is found aboard a man-of-war as he is almost certain to be discovered. He was a private in the American Army with a Hawaiian name. A murder had been committed just before we arrived in Honolulu, so we think he may have been the culprit.
‘Ina, aren’t you glad the murderer wasn’t on Tommy’s ship?’ said Bunty.
Ina ignored that. ‘Is Canada ours?’ she asked Willa.
‘Yes.’
‘Everybody knows that,’ said Bunty.
Willa resumed reading.
During the trip we carried out gunnery and torpedo exercises, the weather remaining good the whole time. We are now berthed at Esquimault, the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Navy, a seaport nine miles from Victoria, the capital of BC. The harbour is circular in shape and one of the safest and best defended harbours on the Canadian coast. Lumbering is a big industry in BC and logs make huge rafts floating on the surface of the water. Quite a sight.
‘I’ve always fancied going to Canada,’ said Pauline. ‘My Uncle Billy went. I think he got a job as a lumberjack, funnily enough. He’s never come back.’
After a week in hospital, Pauline had returned to them. As Willa had said to Ina, where else was she to go? Willa had enjoyed having her room back to herself and Malcolm for that week. Since her return Pauline had been getting on her nerves more than before, spilling talcum powder over the dressing table, leaving dirty clothes lying on the floor. As Ina said, she was a right slitter. And she wanted to talk, endlessly, about Ernest. She kept badgering Willa to go back and ask Miss Piper if she’d heard anything more about him, since she couldn’t go herself, not after the mess she’d made on the haberdashery floor. Willa had gone once but there had been no further news.
‘That’s a long one he’s written,’ said Ina, indicating the letter.
Tommy seemed impressed by Canada. New country, new opportunities, he wrote. You could have a good life here though the climate in South Africa was better so, given the choice, he’d probably opt for the latter. Willa skimmed the next two pages, which related facts mostly about buildings and the population.
Victoria, pop. around 50,000, the capital of BC, and a port of call for Trans-Pacific liners, is a modern city with many fine buildings, the Hudson Bay Company’s being a miniature skyscraper. The Gorge – a large stretch of water with delightfully wooded and shady banks – is its pleasure ground.
That perked the interest up.
‘How do all those places come to have pleasure grounds?’ asked Pauline. ‘Everywhere he goes. We don’t have any in Edinburgh.’
‘We’ve got Portobello,’ said Bunty, pronouncing it Porty-belly, knowing it would annoy Ina.
‘Portobello!’ said Pauline. ‘Water’s always freezing there.’
A regatta was held and taking part in the races were three boats from the squadron. Two races were won by the Danae, which shows what a great racing ship she is! We were delighted with her performance.
‘Good for Tommy,’ said his mother.
‘I don’t suppose he was sailing the boat single-handed,’ said Bunty. ‘But never mind boat races. What about the dancing?’
‘There must be some,’ said Willa. ‘After all, it’s part of Navy life. Yes, here we are!’
The drill hall o
f the Armouries is being used for dancing. It has a very large floor with a bandstand in the centre, with a balcony running round the entire hall. Beside the dancing there were other entertainments—
‘I’ll bet!’ said Bunty.
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep interrupting,’ said Ina, who was good at it herself. ‘I can’t concentrate. Any road, should you not be getting back to the shop? There might be a queue outside. You never know your luck.’ Bunty had a number of cards that she put on the door when she felt like going out for a bit. Back in ten minutes. Fifteen. ‘Read on, Willa. Don’t pay any attention to Bunty.’
—entertainments such as racing with cardboard horses stretched on lines across the hall with young and old of both sexes gambling eagerly with imitation dollar notes. The more one won the more chance one had when the draw took place before the last dance and then the lucky ticket holders won real money.
‘Some gey funny places in the world,’ remarked Ina.
‘I don’t think Canada’s too odd,’ said Willa. ‘I believe it’s full of Scots.’
‘Mr Parkin’s going to take me to the races at Musselburgh,’ said Bunty. ‘But they’ll be real horses, none of your cardboard cutouts.’
‘I had a friend who used to go,’ said Pauline.
Willa felt sure that would be Ernest.
The Canadian people are very open and friendly. They have been extremely generous to us, couldn’t ask for more. A small trace of the American element is displayed in their ways and they have a bit of the Yankee twang. Autos, as in the US, are cheaper here than in the UK.
‘Wouldn’t mind a car,’ said Ina.
Apart from Gerry with his butcher’s van, the only person they knew with a motorised vehicle was Bunty’s Mr Parkin who had a Baby Austin. Not that any of them had ever met him, except for Bunty, of course. They had seen him in the distance, with Bunty on his arm. He walked with a straight back and appeared to wear a dark trilby and spats even on warm days.
‘We could go runs down the coast,’ Ina went on. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Malkie?’ He looked up from the brick tower he’d been building. In a moment he would knock it down, gleefully. ‘You could make sandcastles. Granny would help you.’
