Capital Union, A

by Hendry, Victoria

  I looked like a tattieboggle pinned together in her old clothes, but I wanted to keep him happy. My secret upstairs would be safer if I did.

  A small crowd had gathered on Longstone Road, which ran past the back of the prison. Jeff pointed out the poet Hugh McDiarmid to me. At a signal from a drum major, a piper stepped forward in full regalia and we marched as a ragtag army of old men, women with bare legs, and bairns up to the gate. The notes of Scots Wha Hae floated over the prison wall, and at one of the windows a handkerchief fluttered. ‘He has heard us,’ Jeff yelled, but I couldn’t make out which window it was. Men I recognised from the conference cheered and shouted, ‘Yours aye for Scotland, Douglas.’

  A member of the committee began to speak. ‘Friends, we are gathered here today to serenade our Chairman, and while away the heavy hours of his imprisonment in communion with him and his heartfelt nationalism. His stand tells the world that a sovereign nation will never bow to the will of Westminster, that a treaty, however old, cannot be thrown to the wind, and that a true Scot will never surrender to oppression, be it English or German.’

  I had heard it all before. I felt my skirt slip on my hips and pulled it up. ‘Stop wriggling, Agnes,’ said Jeff.

  I moved behind a woman with a pram to be out of sight. I’d wanted to wear my best dress in case Douglas was looking out, but I still couldn’t spot which window he was at. ‘Come here,’ said Jeff, the way Sylvia spoke to her dogs. I shook my head. He frowned and his eyes went hot under his hat. I didn’t want him to be angry when we got home, with Hannes just upstairs, so when the piper struck up A Man’s a Man for a’ That, I took his arm and sang at the top of my voice to please him. The notes soared above his baritone.

  ‘Same time next Sunday, folks,’ said the committee man. ‘Thank you for coming and showing your support for our dear Douglas.’

  We waited a long time for a tram. Jeff stood up to get off at the West End and said he would walk over to the university. It was becoming a habit. ‘Maybe that outfit wasn’t the best choice,’ he said as he left, ‘although Mother always carried it off.’

  I thought he had been leaning over to kiss me. It wasn’t just the things I said that got stuck in people’s teeth.

  ‘It was your idea,’ I said, but he moved off down the tram holding onto the rails.

  At home, Mrs MacDougall’s door flew open as I went up the stairs. ‘I was hoping to catch you alone,’ she said. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’

  ‘A piece of ancient history,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, never mind that. How is our… new neighbour?’ She rolled her eyes to the landing above. ‘Still alive?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Walking about?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Don’t give him too much to eat. He might get too strong.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs MacDougall. I grew up on a farm with five brothers.’

  ‘Aye, but they weren’t…’ and she sketched a Sieg Heil in the air and mouthed the word ‘Nazis’. ‘They are fanatics, dear. They say Hitler is designing a rocket that could reach Scotland. The end is coming, Agnes.’

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t mean you should feel guilty about what you are doing.’ She emphasised the word ‘you’. ‘God will forgive you for lifting the burden from his servant’s shoulders.’ Footsteps approached the stair and she slammed her door shut.

  It was a boy with a telegram for Jeff. Strips of paper were pasted onto a cream sheet. The letters were typed in large print, confirming his hearing: ‘CO Tribunal Glasgow, Monday, at 11am.’ The last telegrams I had seen were at our wedding; loving greetings from Jeff’s family up north, and our family in Ireland. The war had stopped most of them travelling to be with us on that day, when I had been so happy. Jeff had wiggled the dark eyebrows he claimed he got from Angus Og, a distant ancestor, and said, ‘How do I look?’ And I replied, ‘A little Og.’ When he laughed I thought he was the handsomest man alive. It was my grannie who’d whispered, ‘The gilt will soon be off that gingerbread,’ to my aunt. I wondered what she had seen in us that I hadn’t.

  I couldn’t thole being inside waiting for Jeff to get back, so I went and sat in the garden with my plants. A slater made his way along the bricks edging the vegetable patch, feeling the air with his antenna. The black and white cat from next door came and sat beside me to watch it. He had been wild for most of the summer, hunting mice and drinking from an old clay bowl I had put out to catch the rainwater. He licked his already white paws. A movement at the window caught my eye. Hannes was looking down at me with an expression of sympathy. We were both a long way from home. I pulled some carrots and small new potatoes from the good earth and took them into the kitchen. When they were boiled, I mashed them with a little butter and took them upstairs. The front bedroom was empty and I almost dropped the bowl when Hannes came through the hall. He was wearing an old shirt and trousers of Professor Schramml’s, and looked as if he had washed. He was taller than Jeff. I stopped stock-still.

  ‘Grüss Gott,’ he said, and bowed. ‘Wollen wir uns duzen? Ein Deutschsprecher wohnte hier, nicht wahr?’ I didn’t know what he meant. He pointed to a picture of the Professor and then to himself. ‘German, here?’

  I nodded, and held the food out to him. He took it into the kitchen, sat down at the table and chewed each mouthful slowly. I pretended to clean: wiping the surfaces with a soapy cloth, too shy to sit with him. He looked amused, but I was wondering if all Professor Schramml’s kitchen knives were still in their drawer. When he had finished eating, he beckoned me to follow him through to the front room. I was afraid he might lock me in, so I stood by the door. There was a German dictionary in a glass-fronted bookcase and he pulled it out and carried it over to the table, opening it as if it were a book of spells. He poured over the pages, leafing backwards and forwards, and writing the words he found in a list. ‘From Vienna,’ he said. ‘Austrian. Farmer. Go home. Not fight.’ He pulled a photo of a child out of his pocket. ‘Liesl. Hast Du Kinder?’ She was wearing a dress with wee, white puffed sleeves, a black bodice and an apron over the top, just like a picture of Snow White. ‘Children?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Vielleicht gibt’s noch Zeit dafür, wenn alles vorbei ist?’ he said, and smiled, but I didn’t understand.

  ‘Perhaps, one day. Wo ist Dein Mann?’ He pointed to his ring finger and then to me.

  ‘My man?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘At the university.’

  ‘Universität von Edinburgh? Professor?’

  ‘Lecturer.’ I must have looked sad thinking of Jeff. The telegram was folded in my pocket.

  ‘Er will Soldat werden?’ He mimed holding a gun across his chest and waved a hand at the window.

  ‘Not a soldier, no.’

  He leafed through the dictionary.

  ‘You love your man?’

  His eyes were warm. I nodded.

  ‘Krieg macht Angst. War – anxiety.’

  I didn’t like all these German words and stood up to go. He could have stopped me but didn’t move.

  ‘Komm bald wieder,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come back soon.’

  He stood as I left the table, bowed from his shoulders and clicked his heels together. It was so military that I wanted to run downstairs and phone the police, but by the time I opened the door, I realised that it might make things worse for Jeff. Mr Ford would have been cock-a-hoop to kill two birds with one stone.

  17

  The day of the tribunal came too soon and the train to Glasgow was full of servicemen and sailors, who had docked at Leith and were travelling home. They were bearded and hollow-eyed, gazing out at the hills and the ruin of Linlithgow Palace as if they were seeing them for the first time. The carriage was full of smoke and Jeff pursed his lips, brushed at the creases in his best suit and looked through his papers balanced on his briefcase, as if he was doing something so important he cou
ldn’t look up for a moment. I brought him a cup of tea from the buffet, but he let it grow cold on the little table below the window.

  ‘I’ll drink that if you don’t want it, pal,’ said the soldier opposite, and Jeff nodded. ‘Going far, doll?’ the man asked me, as Jeff looked down again.

  ‘Glasgow,’ I said.

  ‘A meeting,’ Jeff added, with a look at me under his brows.

  ‘Home Front?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Jeff answered.

  ‘Glad you boys are holding the fort. I was never much good at paperwork.’

  I excused myself. My stomach was churning and I only just made it to the toilet before I threw up my tea. I sat there until someone knocked on the door, and then I stood at an open window at the end of the carriage until we were almost at Queen Street.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Jeff asked, as I slid open the door to the compartment.

  ‘You want to keep an eye on that one, pal,’ said the soldier. ‘A regular film star.’

  Jeff sniffed as he leant towards me. ‘I’ve been sick,’ I said. He put his arms around me. ‘I’m not going to jail, Pip,’ he whispered. The soldiers pressed past us, down the narrow corridor.

  We walked out from under the huge glass canopy of Queen Street station and through George Square to Ingram Street. The Sheriff Court was in a sandstone building with six columns that had flowery tops at the front. It stretched back a long way. I felt I was getting smaller as we walked up to it. A policeman opened the door for us.

  The room where the tribunal was held was very bare. A photo of King George hung behind the heads of three men seated at a polished oak table. One stood as we entered and led me to a seat behind the door. His feet squeaked on the lino as he moved back across the room, pointing to another seat for Jeff in the centre of the floor. Jeff walked over to the coat stand in the corner. ‘You won’t be here long enough for that,’ the man said, but Jeff hung up his coat anyway. It seemed to annoy the man who had spoken.

  ‘Dr Jeffrey James McCaffrey of Falkland Terrace, Edinburgh?’ he said. ‘You know why you are in attendance at the Sheriff Court?’

  ‘I am fully cognisant of my position,’ replied Jeff.

  ‘Do you have a valid reason not to sign up?’

  ‘I’d like to know to whom I am addressing my remarks,’ Jeff replied.

  The man introduced the others at the table. One was in uniform.

  ‘It is really quite simple,’ said Jeff, ‘I do not wish to fight under the auspices of conscription.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘On the grounds that Westminster cannot enforce the National Services (Armed Forces) Act of 1939 in Scotland under the Act of Union.’

  ‘You are a member of the SNP?’ said the uniformed man.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you will be aware that we have already been over this ground with your Chairman, Douglas Grant.’

  Jeff opened his mouth to speak but the man held up a hand. ‘Let me cut to the chase, Dr McCaffrey. All former rulings have been superseded by the Act of 1941, and as long as that remains a statute, it is the law. It doesn’t matter if an individual wishes to contest it. It is law until repealed by subsequent legislation, and therefore you are bound by its jurisdiction. Do I make myself clear?’

  Jeff shuffled his papers. ‘I wish to invoke the League of Nations and its attendant organisations,’ he said.

  ‘Let us save ourselves the cost of another High Court appearance, Dr McCaffrey. For international purposes, Scotland and England constitute one state. Perhaps we might be more inclined to listen to your views when the guns fall silent across Europe, and your fellow countrymen return.’

  ‘I am committed to the declared aims of the SNP to establish a self-governing Scotland,’ said Jeff.

  ‘Now be a good fellow,’ the third man interrupted, ‘and sign up. We can offer a man of your evident intelligence a non-combatant role with His Majesty’s Government.’

  ‘I will only fight for Scotland,’ said Jeff.

  The man sighed. ‘Perhaps you would agree to tend the soil of your beloved Caledonia until this war is over? There are various nurseries across Scotland. I believe the work there would not be too arduous.’

  ‘I will not surrender my principles,’ said Jeff.

  ‘Then we have no option but to recommend you for a jail term of twelve months. Do you wish to contest the ruling?’

  ‘No,’ said Jeff. ‘I will be a nationalist martyr.’

  ‘Then you are a fool, Dr McCaffrey,’ said the man, ‘with no thought for your wife.’

  Jeff looked round at me and winked.

  18

  The street looked the same when we came out, but everything had changed for us. Jeff walked off under the sandstone arches opposite the court, muttering something about ‘triumphal archways to my own bloody misfortune’, when I stopped to look up at them. ‘We haven’t time for this, Agnes,’ he said, and walked quickly up a hilly side street, which looked as if it led straight into the clouds. The name ‘St Vincent Street’ was carved into one of the tall buildings. Three-storey houses lined the pavements at the top, and on my left I could see out over the Clyde. Somewhere down there, they were building warships among the bombed-out tenements. Jeff stopped at Blythswood Square to let me catch my breath. All the houses looked out onto a beautiful garden, but it was locked behind iron gates. I would have liked to climb over the fence, sit for a while and talk. It was like a Garden of Eden, full of growing things, but he didn’t want to stop. ‘I don’t want to discuss it,’ he muttered. ‘They are just misguided, self-serving plebeians afraid to shake the status quo. They won’t count for anything at the end of the day.’

  We walked towards Charing Cross station and I tried to put my arm through his as we reached the Scottish Home Rule Association, but he shrugged me off and took the five steps up to the door in a single bound.

  Jeff left me sitting in the kitchen while he went off with a Mr Lamont to discuss whether the SNP petition should demand amnesty for himself as well as Douglas, but in the end they decided it was not a good idea. ‘Douglas is a figurehead,’ Mr Lamont explained as they came back through. ‘Adding other names would only muddy the water. I have to ask you to suffer your jail term quietly. I secretly fear that MacGilvray might be right that conscientious objection in the membership might hinder, rather than help, the cause of nationalism.’

  ‘MacGilvray was a fool to divide the Party,’ said Jeff. ‘The new Scottish Convention is just a distraction.’

  ‘Still the same cause, Jeff.’

  I dried the cup I had used and hung up the dish towel. Someone had embroidered it with thistles. ‘Why can’t you help my husband, Mr Lamont?’ I asked. ‘How will I survive in a war without him?’

  ‘Not now, Agnes,’ said Jeff. ‘I can ask the Edinburgh University branch of the SNP for support. I believe they are going to campaign for Douglas for Rector, so they must be pretty active.’

  ‘Never say never,’ laughed Mr Lamont. He helped me into my coat and shook Jeff’s hand. He bowed to me. ‘Although I am not in complete agreement with your husband’s particular stand, you should be proud of him, Mrs McCaffrey. In his way he is fighting a different kind of war on behalf of all Scots. Some wrongs need to be righted, we’re just not all able to agree on when or how.’

  ‘But we have had peace with England since 1707, Mr Lamont. My father said they lent us money. Doesn’t that count for something?’

  Jeff looked over at me as if I was a mental defective short of a bed, but Mr Lamont said, ‘An unequal partnership does not make a happy marriage, Mrs McCaffrey.’

  ‘That is enough, Agnes,’ said Jeff, opening the front door before I could say anything else. ‘We’ll be late for our train. Good day to you, Mr Lamont.’

  When he turned to me in the street he looked like he hated me. ‘Do you think I went through that tribunal for fun? Do you think I have nothing better to do than sit in prison? My work for the Party is important.’


  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘You undermined me with your pro-Unionist comment. We were standing in the middle of the Scottish Home Rule Association in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘I do support you. I am here, amn’t I?’ I tried to take his arm. ‘But you must admit we haven’t been sneaking across the border to steal each other’s cows since the Union.’

  ‘That is typical of you – take the simple view. Reduce everything to the farmyard.’

  ‘You have a very low opinion of me.’

  ‘I judge as I find,’ said Jeff, and walked off.

  ‘I know enough to know you are trying to plant in the wrong season,’ I shouted after him, but he didn’t turn round. I watched him go. The rain crept under my collar in thin, cold lines and ran down my back. I followed him as best I could to Queen Street station but I lost my way at the end of Sauchiehall Street. A woman directed me to the side entrance and I found Jeff at the barrier, urging me to hurry up.

  ‘We’ll miss the train, Agnes,’ he shouted, and I ran across the concourse. He caught my arm as I slipped on the wet surface of the platform, and opened the door of the last carriage just as it began to pull out. The guard blew his whistle and waved his flag to the driver as Jeff levered me on board and jumped in after me, slamming the door. ‘Let’s not fight, Pip,’ he said, as we found an empty compartment and took our seats. ‘At the end of the day, you are my wife and it is my duty to guide you.’

  He shook out his coat, folded it and put it up on the luggage rack before opening his paper. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked, and started reading as we pulled into the tunnel out of the city.