One time Stevie asked what that last bit meant, and Lindsey pulled him close, telling him Uncle Eric was sad. Not a word to him about his wife, son. You hear? It’s not nice to pry. He’ll maybe tell us about Auntie Franny himself. Best to wait.
Except Brenda could see Lindsey wasn’t good at waiting. All their snatched talks just set off more thoughts, and she hadn’t heard nearly enough yet. The girl had tapped at Eric’s box files when they were leaving, just last Tuesday, and she’d told him:
“You should put more drawings on your walls. Must be plenty great ones in that lot.”
Brenda thought she meant pictures of Franny. Else why all those questions? Lindsey wanted to see evidence: Eric’s wife and the new life they’d made, the two of them, beyond Drumchapel. Brenda reckoned the girl was right as well, Eric must have drawn his Frances a hundred times, more than.
She knew about her brother’s special picture, and Brenda thought it was bound to be of Franny, if he ever got it right. It seemed like he started another drawing of her every couple of months, but none of them made it onto the walls. Eric just kept them filed, or he tore them into pieces: Brenda had found ones he’d discarded before, in shreds or tight balls, in the kitchen bin, when she’d been tidying. She’d been tempted, but she’d never taken them out. She still hoped to be shown sometime, though.
Brenda was full of thought as they got off the bus and walked through Hyndland. Stevie dawdled round the corners and Lindsey had to chivvy him along. It was a big flat they’d be cleaning, grand tenement ground floor, main door, and most of the floors parquet, but at least the owners would be out, so they’d have peace and the place to themselves. It wasn’t too far from Eric’s either, only a quick cut through the Botanics and along the Kelvin, so Brenda unlocked the doors, thinking they could go and see him after. But just now they had to work.
Lindsey retuned the radio and they started in on the dust.
Stevie was all fidget through the rooms behind them, same as he’d been on the way here; like he didn’t know what to do with himself. Not used to the long haul of a cleaning day any more, Brenda thought, and Lindsey gave him the bag she’d packed full of cars and Lego, but even after that he was still behind her every time she turned round, with a look on his face like he had something to tell her, except he couldn’t remember what.
“Will you stop it?”
Lindsey laughed, a bit vexed, and she steered him towards the hallway.
“Go and play, will you?”
She pointed him over to the front door, where there was space, and he wouldn’t be in the way, and Brenda promised him a trip to a swing park for after. She reckoned they could fit that in on the way to Eric’s, and it seemed to do the trick anyhow, because Stevie left them to get the beds made.
Only then she caught sight of him a bit later, crouched out in the hallway, and he still didn’t seem right. Stevie had something in front of him on the floor, except it didn’t look like one of his toys. Brenda had just made a start on the kitchen, but now her grandson had her distracted; elbows wrapped round his knees, he sat and squinted at whatever it was, like he’d been hunkered there for ages. She tapped at Lindsey’s shoulder.
“What’s he found?”
It looked like a photo, maybe, or a scrap of paper, and Lindsey stopped wiping the surfaces and smiled about him a moment:
“I wondered how he’d been so quiet.”
She called to him:
“What’ve you got, son?”
Leaning out into the hallway. Only then Stevie was on his feet, quick-smart, burying whatever it was in his armpit.
Lindsey raised her eyebrows at Brenda before she went to stand by her boy.
“I’m only asking.” She spoke to him quiet. “Not telling you off. We’ll have to put it back, though. Where’s it from?”
She pointed at all the doors, leading off from the wide hall, like she thought he’d taken something from a mantelpiece or a drawer, but Stevie didn’t answer. So Brenda stepped out into the hallway too, and then she and Lindsey were both standing over him.
“Mon, son.”
“Where’d you get it?”
Stevie coloured up:
“Eric’s.”
He told them:
“It’s only wan ae his drawings.”
And he looked like he might cry. Lindsey frowned at him, puzzled, and then he pushed the paper into her hand.
It was a picture of Franny. It stung Brenda to see it. Her much-loved sister-in-law, head and shoulders, a bit creased from Stevie’s pockets. Lindsey held it out to show her—eyes wide, guessing right—and Brenda nodded. Franny was sleepy in the drawing; early morning, turning forty, maybe, and pinning up her hair for work, all her curls; plump and pretty as she was.
“Did Eric give it you, love?” Brenda doubted her brother would do that.
Stevie shook his head, caught out, and then Lindsey launched:
“Oh no, son. You just took it? That wasn’t nice. That’s Eric’s wife. The one who died.”
She took hold of his wrist, but Stevie wouldn’t look at her, he just said:
“I know that.” Tight-lipped, like he was holding in tears. “I know it’s Auntie Franny.”
So Eric hadn’t given him the drawing, but he must have been talking to Stevie about her.
It touched Brenda to think that: her brother, talking to her grandson, and about something he found so hard. Eric hadn’t spoken to her about Franny in years, but she still remembered what he used to say, over and over, after she died. She earned her ain money, bought her ain clothes, and tidied up efter hersel. Still young when the cancer caught up wae her. I didnae get tae keep her long enough. Brenda felt herself nodding; Franny was a sad loss. Only then Stevie cut across her thoughts:
“She was a Tim.”
Lindsey blinked. Brenda caught her breath. What did he say? Stevie repeated:
“Franny was a Tim. Her faimly. They were Catholic.”
“Come again, son?”
Lindsey dropped his wrist, the wind taken out of her sails, and Stevie had his face turned up to them both, like he was bracing himself:
“It’s true, so it is. Eric tellt me.”
He could tell he’d said something that mattered, even if he didn’t know why yet, and Brenda stood and struggled not to shout, thinking Eric might have told him any number of things about Franny, but he wouldn’t have used that word. Not Tim.
“You willnae say that again.”
It came out sharp, more so than Brenda had meant, and it made Stevie flinch, Lindsey too. But where had he picked that up? Such a shock to hear it from a wee boy’s mouth, and her grandson’s to boot. It had left Brenda scattered, and she tried to gather her thoughts now, quick: Graham didn’t hang about with the band crowd any more, so Stevie must have heard it in the playground or the park. How was it that folk still talked like that?
She’d heard plenty worse, of course, back when she was Stevie’s age. There were battles most weeks, with kids from the Catholic school, across from the Kinning Park tenements. Clods of earth were thrown on the way in the mornings, and insults with them, from pavement to pavement; stones too, on occasion, and then the fighting would start, but mostly the two denominations kept to their own side of the road. Hullo Hullo, we are the Billy Boys. The older kids stood tall, singing out at the corner, at the parting of the ways, King William’s troops triumphant over James. Up tae our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you’ll die! Brenda remembered whispering along behind them, excited and frightened, knowing her mother would slap her legs if she ever caught her joining in: her parents always told her the RC kids were to be tolerated, but preferably not played with.
Then the council tore down the tenements, and moved out the families in the long summer holidays. All those weeks, she’d been high and dry on the new scheme pavements, trying to find the old Kinning Park kids she used to knock about with. Brenda thought of the hours she’d spent, washing clothes with her mother at the kitchen sink, yapping about all tho
se untold neighbours moving in; peering across the Drumchapel back court at all the new folk behind the windows, guessing which were prods and which were papes. Her Mum never got tired of that game.
All that seemed an age ago, like a different life. One she’d put far behind.
Only then Brenda saw Lindsey, and how she was blinking at Franny’s picture, as though she hadn’t wanted to face up to this until now. Eric married a Catholic.
“That’s why they fell out. Eric and your Dad.”
Lindsey said it, flat. Like she’d been happier while she could tell herself there was a different reason. She turned to Brenda:
“Was it bad like that here as well?”
Maybe she’d thought nowhere could be as bad as Ireland. She didn’t wait for an answer anyhow, Lindsey just let out her breath in confirmation:
“That’s why Eric had to get away from him.”
Brenda nodded, quiet. It was hard to hear it, said straight out like that, bald fact: her brother and father went twenty years without talking, neither of them budging, two decades lost to both of them. She’d sooner have closed the subject, only then she saw the look on Lindsey’s face, like she’d been let down.
“How come you never said? About Franny. You could have just told me.”
Brenda knew she should have.
She’d come close, any number of times, and she wished just now that she’d taken that plunge, instead of it coming out in a mess like this. She’d started off thinking Graham would let slip, surely, or one of his brothers; someone else would take that onus. Brenda ended up leaving it so long, part of her had kidded on, the girl already knew it; that it was unspoken but understood anyhow, in all their Franny conversations. And what to say now?
“I’m sorry, love. I wasnae tryin tae hush it up.”
Brenda could see that must be just how it felt.
Maybe Lindsey thought she was ashamed.
Maybe she was.
Where the girl came from it could be life and death, which side of the great divide you grew up. Why folk over here wanted part of that was a mystery to Brenda. It was mostly just the ignorant who stuck their oar in, as far as she could make out, glorying in someone else’s fight, or taking the battle to the football grounds. All those idiots who sang rebel songs at Celtic Park, or smashed out the green traffic lights at junctions when Rangers lost, stabbing each other on the side roads after Old Firm cup ties. They talked like they were carrying the torch, from the Reformation to the Troubles, but Brenda thought it was just small-minded, taking pride in bearing grudges.
Lindsey asked:
“What did your mother say? Nana Margaret? Couldn’t she have got your Dad to see sense?”
Brenda shook her head:
“She’d passed by then, a good couple ae years back.” Not there any more to temper him, if she ever had.
And anyhow, Brenda wanted to get one thing straight: it wasn’t Franny she was ashamed of, it was her Dad. She said:
“Franny was her ain woman, aye? An she was just right for Eric.”
Brenda thought Papa Robert had known that fine well, even without her mother there to point it out.
“My Da could never bring himself to say it. He just couldnae get over hissel. His ain hurt, aye?”
He said it all went back to Louth. And he’d told them enough times: how they didn’t think about things long enough, go back far enough, take the time to understand. All the blows his family suffered.
“Course Eric wouldnae hear it.”
Her brother had told her it was just bigotry, and it didn’t matter how their Dad dressed it up. So Brenda sighed now, telling Lindsey:
“It was a hard fight, aw told.”
She’d spent so many years as the go-between, choosing her words; not just with her father, but with Eric as well. Always thinking before she spoke: what she could say and what was best swallowed. It got so she couldn’t even talk to Malky, he got so sick of all that back and forth, and the grief it caused.
“I mind when Papa Robert died. It was a relief, aye?”
It wasn’t what a daughter should say about her father’s passing, but there it was. She’d said it now, and it was true as well: she’d needed a break from all that strife. Brenda thought they all had, the whole family—a fresh start, a gloss put on the past—and she looked at Lindsey now, hoping she might understand.
Lindsey gave no sign, not at first, she just turned back to Eric’s picture, Franny’s early morning profile. Then she said:
“He’s been drawing Papa Robert. Eric has. He showed me, just this week.”
It gave Brenda a jolt to hear that, and it must have shown, because Lindsey went on:
“They’re nice. Eric’s new drawings.”
And she smiled a bit, like she hadn’t expected that either.
“He told me he’s not done a picture of your Dad in years. He’s always got stuck before, when he’s tried.”
Lindsey put her head to one side.
“Now I can see why.”
She met Brenda’s eye, soft, like Brenda was forgiven, or getting there in any case; she’d grown up with Papa Robert too, after all. Then Lindsey said:
“Eric’s done three big sheets of your Dad and his roses. Planting them up. Back when you were kids.”
Brenda could only blink at first, taking in the news. Only then she thought it made sense—almost—for Eric to draw that, because they hadn’t always argued, her brother and Dad. Far from it, in fact. Those early Drumchapel years were good ones, maybe their best times. When Eric started at the High School, Papa Robert had dug over the earth in front of the house, and then they’d heeled in those roses, just the two of them, like to mark his fine achievement. So he must have known their father was proud of him, even if he never said as much.
“Our Da was a proud man, aye.”
Lindsey nodded, wry:
“That’s what Eric says too. He’s drawn the bushes all thick and twisted, from Papa Robert’s hard pruning. But he told me the blooms were glorious.”
“So they were.” Brenda remembered. “They went on for months. Summer tae the first ae the frosts. Fed by the tea leaves he used to fling at the roots, mornin and evenin, efter the pot had cooled.”
She lapsed into thought again, thinking of her father’s good sides. A long time since she’d had cause. All their close neighbours had loved those roses; folk of both denominations and none. They were a scheme landmark, and her father a scheme legend: resolute. His patch of Drumchapel wouldn’t go down the tubes, not while he had life and breath, and when he was on your side you were glad of it, right enough.
Brenda was loved, she’d never doubted that. But Eric was the firstborn, the clever one, her Dad’s best hope, and maybe her brother was drawing what that had felt like. She hoped it helped him to remember. Papa Robert had read the paper up at the table of an evening while Eric did his school work, not keeping check, or helping, just there to be companionable. They went to the library together on Saturday mornings too. They cycled across to Partick, because that’s where Papa Robert worked, and Brenda used to sit on the steps and watch them go down the road: two bikes and two sets of big, blunt bones.
So how did it come to all that fighting? Brenda thought: it should all have been so different.
Only the girl took her arm then, leaning in close, telling her:
“I’d sooner Eric was drawing Franny. If I’m honest.”
Brenda nodded: agreed. And they shared a small half-smile, the hurt between them healing.
Stevie was still crying, though, at the row he’d just been given. Brenda caught sight of her grandson, hiding his face, all wet-cheeked, and red behind his freckles, and then she felt sorry for shouting.
“Dinnae take it tae heart, son.”
He wasn’t to blame, not for any of this, or the daft words he used. Lindsey put a palm to his cheek to soothe him:
“You gave us a shock, that’s all. It’s a sore subject.” Complicated. “You weren’t to know.”
&
nbsp; Brenda cleaned a house in Hyndland, she had done for years, where the family were Italian, way back, three generations. There was a picture of them all in Rome, up on the mantelpiece, taken in the 1970s, when they were lined up on St. Peter’s Square to see the new pope. The kids were still young then, and open-mouthed, the three of them squashed up together at the front of the crowd, huddling close to Mrs. C, who was oblivious; on cloud nine, arms flung high, reaching for John Paul II as he passed, her fingers almost touching his upraised hand.
Brenda ran a duster over the frame, that ecstatic face, every Wednesday afternoon. And the Sacred Heart in the bedroom too, that gave her the creeps at first, but she’d grown immune. She’d never told the family that her Dad was an Orangeman, although Brenda did think it might appeal to them, their sense of humour. The kids were all grown now, and she’d heard them ribbing their mother about that Rome photo, and Mrs. C laughing too, saying she’d come over all heat-of-the-moment at the sight of His Holiness. But Brenda still kept her little secret. Life was just that bit easier sometimes, if you glossed over the details.
Mrs. C looked after her grandson now, on days her daughter worked, and her husband doted on the baby. He let him fall asleep in his arms instead of the cot, and he went down to the Celtic shop too, to get him a baby-sized strip, with a bib to catch the dribbles, in the same green and white, with Papa’s Little Tim printed across the middle.
So maybe Tim could be funny now. Brenda didn’t know. She crouched down next to Stevie anyhow; his small face still a bit teary, a bit wary. He asked her:
“You gonnae say tae Uncle Eric?”
Brenda sighed: she hadn’t yet decided. She told him:
“We’ll have tae give it back, aye? His picture.”
Stevie shook his head:
“I took it for my Maw, but.”
He’d taken it for Lindsey.
This boy was full of surprises. Brenda didn’t know what to say to that, so Stevie just turned to his mother, and buried his face in the folds of her T-shirt.
The Walk Home Page 8
