‘Tell me about your travelling, Granny.’ Maggie edged closer, until she brushed the rustling material of her grandmother’s black gown.
Granny Beaton placed a hand about her slim shoulders and pulled her into the crook of her arm. She smelt musty as mothballs and Maggie felt a moment of fear, but the soft voice was speaking to her again in its hypnotic lilt, as if Granny Beaton was trying out a new language that did not come easily.
That afternoon, Maggie heard for the first time the stories she was to demand constantly from her Highland grandmother in the days to come, of a childhood in the shadow of vast mountains, of legends and timeless songs, of a time when Granny and her people were moved down to the seashore to pick a living from the sea.
When Mabel entered the darkened parlour she was amazed to see Maggie sitting on Alec’s mother’s knee, enthralled by the tale of the family’s eviction from their thatched home on the crowded shoreline by the men of power and money who owned the land and the long trek which took them finally to Glasgow.
‘And they threw earth on the fire,’ Granny Beaton’s voice was almost a chant, ‘and the heart went out of the place. And the wailing of the women could be heard on the hilltops that day from Sgurr Beag to Druim nan Sgarbh. And they put our things into an open cart in the rain and charged us money for the hire of it.’ Granny trembled.
Mabel shuddered at the stark words, wondering what was to become of her own family and possessions now there was no wage coming into the household. She had been able to pay the rentman this week as usual, but next week, where would she find the seven shillings to keep them in the house of which she was so proud? She was suddenly angry with her mother-in-law for filling the child’s head full of gloomy tales that had such a prophetic ring about them.
‘There’s no need to go frightening Maggie with such stories, Mrs Beaton,’ Mabel broke in abruptly, ‘especially at a time like this.’
But the look on Maggie’s face told her it was too late. The girl’s grey eyes were a mixture of wonder at the story and indignation at the treatment of Granny and her people.
‘And Da was only a bairn and they still threw him out the house?’ she asked furiously.
‘Aye, barely weaned,’ Granny sighed.
‘Then they were bad, wicked men!’ Maggie shouted, almost in tears.
‘That’s enough,’ Mabel commanded, grabbing hold of Maggie and pulling her from her grandmother’s knee. ‘There’s no point dwelling on the past. Come and get your tea.’ She almost dragged the girl from the room, leaving Granny Beaton sitting alone with her dead son and her ghostly memories.
***
Maggie remembered little of the funeral day, except the moment when they were all bidden to kiss their cold, dead father goodbye. She recalled the chill waxen feel of his cheek and was thankful when the undertaker covered him up with the polished oak lid and carried him from the parlour.
The children watched from the front door as the coffin was heaved into the horse-drawn hearse which Aunt Violet had enviously told Mrs Liddle was costing twenty shillings to hire. ‘Sparing no expense, is Mabel,’ Aunt Violet had said disapprovingly in Maggie’s presence. ‘Would have thought she’d be better spending it on the bairns. She’ll find out now what it’s like having to scrimp and save.’
‘She’ll likely have money put by,’ Mrs Liddle had answered briskly and given Violet a warning look.
The horse snorted and stamped to be off, nodding its black-plumed head as the undertaker climbed onto the carriage in his black top hat and took the reins. Then they were clattering off down the street and Aunt Violet was ushering the children indoors.
Maggie and her sisters sat around fidgeting in their Sunday dresses, while their mother and aunt and several neighbours busied themselves in the kitchen preparing the funeral tea. Later, their father’s workmates and friends would return from the burial and eat the dainty sandwiches and wedges of homemade sponge cake and express their sorrow at losing a fine colleague. Uncle Barny, Aunt Violet’s invalid husband, was the only male relation that the family could muster for the funeral and he was a Dodds not a Beaton. But Maggie liked her mother’s amiable brother with his large red nose and false cork leg that often stood propped in his kitchen next to the poss stick. He was full of colourful stories of soldiering in the Boer War that Aunt Violet could not bear to hear; far from seeing him as a hero at the siege of Lichtenburg, she blamed him for his carelessness in leaving behind a leg that now rendered him jobless and forced her out to work in a tobacconist’s.
Granny Beaton was the only woman in the family who had insisted on attending the funeral service.
‘I’ll see Alec returned to his Maker,’ Granny had said stubbornly and had set out alone for the Methodist church where Mabel occasionally made the children attend Sunday School. Mabel could not remember the last time she had gone to chapel herself, but she had been grateful for the two hours of peace on a Sunday when Susan marched her siblings along the road to Mr Heslop’s classes and she and Alec had been able to draw the curtains and sneak back to bed together.
She felt a great longing for her gentle husband as she realised once again she would never feel his touch under the bedclothes or hear his bawdy whisperings. But it was not customary in their community for the wife to attend the funeral and she had no wish to go. If Alec’s old mother wished to make a spectacle of herself, let her go, Mabel thought with irritation.
One other incident that day stuck in Maggie’s memory and that was a visit from a foreman at Pearson’s where her father had worked for fifteen years. He handed over a huge bunch of flowers, the sort that Maggie had seen presented to important women when they launched ships at Pearson’s yard. And there was a large gift wrapped in brown paper.
‘Open it, Mam!’ Helen had squealed with interest, bored at being kept inside on a sunny afternoon.
The children gathered round their mother in the pristine parlour where a fire had been lit in the gleaming grate and dispelled the fusty smell of death. Helen helped her mother tear open the parcel, then stopped in disappointment at the mundane contents.
‘It’s a tub,’ Helen said in disgust.
‘And a washboard - that’s useful,’ Susan added timidly, trying to be positive.
Maggie watched her mother’s face turn from bafflement to a crimson anger.
I’ve never been so insulted!’ Mabel gasped. ‘Of all the bloody cheek!’
Aunt Violet tutted from behind. ‘They’re just trying to be practical, Mabel,’ she sniffed, her round face barely hiding her glee. ‘After all, you’ll have to make a living somehow, with all your bairns. I’ve found it hard enough just providing for me and Barny. Be thankful for what you’re given, I say.’
For a moment, Maggie thought her mother was going to strike Aunt Violet in her fury. Her eyes blazed as she took a step towards Violet and the plump woman retreated.
‘Well, I’ll not be taking in any washing for anybody!’ Mabel declared. ‘My husband was a skilled man with a good trade - the Beatons are respected around here. I’ll not have my home turned into a public washhouse! Pearson’s can keep their bloody washboard; I’d rather go begging to the parish than take their measly charity!’
Violet fled from the room as Mabel picked up the offending washboard and hurled it across the room where it dented the highly polished floor. Susan and Helen gawped at their mother and Jimmy clung anxiously to Susan’s skirt, terrified by the outburst.
Maggie ran a finger over the brand new tub; it smelt of virgin wood.
‘We could break it up and sell it for firewood, Mam,’ she suggested calmly, ‘or give it to Aunt Violet as a Christmas present.’ Mabel turned to her dark-haired daughter, still shaking with rage, and saw the glint of mischief in the girl’s grey eyes. With a smile of gratitude she put her arms round Maggie and hugged her hard.
‘That’s what we’ll do, bonny lass,’ she laughed a little hysterically, ‘give our Violet the treat she deserves.’
***
Wit
h the funeral well over and a growing family to feed, Mabel’s fighting talk began to sound hollow. She spent the last of their savings on a new pair of shoes for Susan who had suddenly sprouted to the same size as herself. On Saturdays she made sure she was out when the tickman called from the furniture shop where they had bought the large dresser for the parlour and which they only half owned. By October, Mabel was two weeks behind with the rent and owed money to the dairy and the coalman, who only gave her credit because she lived in Sarah Crescent and they knew she had possessions she could sell. Granny Beaton seemed in no hurry to return to Glasgow and even the cautious Jimmy had been won over by her stories and Gaelic songs which helped him drift into dreamless sleep. Mabel could not ask the lonely woman to go, but it worried her that she had an extra mouth to feed.
On a dank day in late October, Mabel dressed in her smartest blue gown and matching hat and set off with head held high, a heavy bag at her side, to the pawnshop on Amelia Terrace. She spread out Alec’s second-best suit on the counter, fingering the familiar material nervously and praying no one she knew had seen her enter.
‘It’s worth eighteen shillings, but I’m prepared to take fifteen.’ Mabel was business-like.
The pawnbroker snorted. ‘It’s fraying at the cuff here, and it’s hardly the height of fashion. Not worth more than six shillings.’
Mabel swallowed her indignation. ‘It’d be robbery to let it go for less than ten shillings,’ she bartered.
‘I’ll give you eight,’ the shopkeeper said, ‘or you can take it elsewhere.’
‘Eight then,’ Mabel said with resignation and gave the suit one last affectionate brush before pushing it across the counter.
The pawnbroker showed more interest in the jewellery that Mabel had to offer; gifts bought by her husband when he had begun bringing in a good wage from Pearson’s, whose precious value only she knew.
When Mabel left she was determined that she would reclaim her lost treasures although she knew in her heart that she would never wear them again.
All too soon, the trips to the pawnbroker became a weekly event and out of the house trickled vases, linen, ornaments and china. Her humiliation became public knowledge when the furniture shop came and reclaimed her oak dresser and there was an ugly scene with the rent collector, who waylaid her in the street.
‘You’ll have to find the money by Friday,’ the weary man shouted, ‘or Mr Thomas wants you out.’
‘We’ve always been good payers, haven’t we?’ Mabel answered with spirit.
‘Listen, if you can’t afford to live here, you’ll just have to find somewhere cheaper,’ the rentman said testily. ‘I’m just trying to do my job.’
Mabel turned her back on him and stormed into the house, slamming the door in his face, cursing the avaricious accountant Thomas whom she had never set eyes on, who owned the roof over her children’s heads and now threatened to make them homeless. But she still clung to the idea of staying in Sarah Crescent, unable to face the alternative.
To her surprise it was the stoical Granny Beaton who shook Mabel out of her paralysed state and goaded her into action.
‘It’s only bricks and mortar,’ the old woman said quietly that night as they sat in the dark of the kitchen with just a spluttering fire for comfort. ‘Not worth going to an early grave over, lassie.’
‘But it’s where Alec and I have been so happy,’ Mabel whispered, unburdening herself for once, now that the children were in bed.
‘Aye, but Alec’s gone from here and there doesn’t seem much point in staying. Do you want the sadness of seeing your little ones turned out on the street in front of all your neighbours?’
Mabel felt tears begin to trickle unbidden down her face. ‘Now I know what it must have been like for you,’ she said miserably.
Agnes Beaton put her hand over her daughter-in-law’s and squeezed it. ‘It was different for me because it was happening to everyone around me too. It’s hard for you, lassie, because most of your neighbours are just looking on, thanking God it hasn’t happened to them.’
‘Oh, Mrs Beaton, what shall I do?’ Mabel pleaded.
‘Flit before they come to throw you out,’ the older woman said roundly.
Mabel peered at her in the dark, astonished ‘You mean run away from Sarah Crescent?’ she gasped ‘What would the neighbours say?’
Agnes Beaton’s smile was wry. ‘They won’t be your neighbours much longer, so don’t you be bothering what they say. God will guide your steps and lead us to another home.’
‘Us?’ Mabel queried. ‘So you’re going to stay too?’
‘You need me to look after the children while you find work,’ her mother-in-law said matter-of-factly. ‘I’m used to getting by on a scrap of meal and a prayer.’
‘What can I do?’ Mabel asked, still despairing. ‘I’ve never worked outside the home.’
‘You’ve still got your sewing machine,’ Agnes pointed out. ‘You could take in mending - a bit of dressmaking. Susan and Maggie will have to find wee jobs to help out too. We’ll manage.’
Mabel felt a flood of warmth towards Alec’s strange mother. She had seen her as a burden and an old blether, filling the children’s heads full of fairytales, but Agnes Beaton was showing the strength of character that had helped her survive eviction and near starvation and still bring up her son to be a skilled craftsman.
The next day, Mabel ventured down the hill to the warren of mean streets that packed around the riverside factories and docks and sought out a flat for a lower rent. She steeled herself to enter a dwelling in Gun Street, stinking of damp and excrement from the earth closet in the back yard. Her nerve nearly failed her when she saw the filthy, dilapidated state of the three downstairs rooms she was being offered by the surly publican who owned the building. From upstairs she could hear the squalling of children and the thump of heavy boots which shook the gas mantle overhead.
‘How much?’ Mabel gulped, glancing out of the dirty window at the drab street with not a tree or blade of grass in sight.
‘Four shillings a week,’ the publican grunted.
‘I’m a widow with four bairns to keep,’ Mabel said in a supplicating voice she despised. ‘And this place is too small to take in lodgers.’
‘Three and six then. I can easy find other tenants who’ll show more gratitude than you.’ He gave Mabel a disparaging look, seemingly annoyed by her bargaining.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said stiffly. ‘We’ll move in the day after tomorrow.’
‘I need a week’s rent up front,’ the landlord insisted.
Mabel bit back a retort that no one should have to pay in advance for a hovel such as this and that he should be paying her for the work she would have to do to make it habitable.
Instead she fumbled in her coat pocket for the precious coins and handed them over with a proud look. With relief she hurried from the depressing street, shrouded in dank mist from the river, and climbed the steep streets to Sarah Crescent for the last time.
Borrowing a cart from Mr Heslop, the Sunday School teacher who had been generous in giving her leftovers from his butcher’s shop, Mabel had the house cleared of its remaining possessions by the time the children returned from school. John Heslop and Mabel’s brother Barny came to help in heaving the two beds and the kitchen table onto the cart, though Barny spent most of the time drinking from a jug of dark mild beer he had brought to fortify them during the task. Heslop politely refused, but Mabel took a glass after he had gone and found that despite its bitter taste it had a reviving effect on her flagging spirits. She was silently grateful that the butcher had made no criticism of her decision to do a moonlight flit; in fact Heslop had been eager to help.
‘What’s happening, Mam?’ Susan asked in astonishment as she ran in from the cold twilight, Jimmy at her heels. She stared around the empty kitchen in bewilderment.
‘We’re leaving tonight, pet,’ her mother answered as calmly as possible. ‘I know it’s sudden, but I’ve found somewhe
re else more affordable.’
Maggie rushed in after her sister and took in the sight of her mother drinking beer with Uncle Barny while Granny Beaton stood over the cooling range, crooked hands outstretched in their black mittens, quietly humming one of her Gaelic songs.
‘Where are we going?’ Maggie asked, half excited by the idea of flitting. Since her father’s death she had hated to see her mother’s unhappiness as their home was gradually denuded of pictures and furniture. Perhaps they were going to live in the country in some homely farm with animals all around them and fields to play in like in Granny Beaton’s childhood tales.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ her mother answered shortly, unable to bring herself to tell them the worst. ‘We’re leaving as soon as it’s dark.’
Mabel glanced anxiously out of the bare window, half expecting that someone would have reported her planned escape to the accountant Thomas and that the police would soon be at her door. But no one had; flits were all too common and no one knew when a similar fate might befall them. An hour later, John Heslop returned and drove the cart off down the hill, the children squashed in among the chattels, silent and subdued. Mabel did not look back at her old home and vowed she would never set foot in Sarah Crescent again until she could afford to live there.
That night she bedded down her frightened children in the kitchen of the Gun Street flat while Granny Beaton coaxed a fire into life in the soot-clogged grate.
‘Tomorrow we’ll give the place a good scrubbing out,’ Mabel told her daughters. ‘We’ll soon have it looking like home.’
‘Does that mean we don’t have to go to school, Mam?’ Susan brightened at the thought.
‘Not tomorrow,’ her mother agreed, thinking silently how Susan’s school days were numbered anyway. She would be needed to help bring in money. Maggie was a different case; she had brains and Mabel was determined to keep her at school as long as she could.
THE GREAT WAR SAGAS: Box set of 2 passionate and inspiring stories: A Crimson Dawn and No Greater Love Page 42
