A Pinch of Salt

by Eileen Ramsay

  ‘He’ll mend it when he gets his leave,’ said Kate and hours after Liam had gone to bed she sat and looked at the little drawing. His scornful words came back, ‘Drawing Christmas puddings isn’t art.’ But this was, the simple sketch on a torn piece of inexpensive drawing paper. Please God, let him live to get a chance. Then her mind seemed to fill with hundreds and thousands of boys who would never get a chance. I cannae help you, laddies, it’s important men wi’ power that’s tae blame for the mess you’re in. And another brick was built into the wall of determination Kate was building. Hers would get a chance. Anything she could do to make life better for those she loved she would do.

  Are they no grand words, Mam? she asked. What can a bit lassie like me ever do but feed them and keep their clothes clean? And there’s Colm and Bridie to stay at the school, and so they will if I have to tie them to the desk.

  Then one day Charlie went, just like that. He got up in the morning, packed his sole change of clothes into a battered suitcase and took a train back to Glasgow where he joined up.

  ‘He aye said he couldn’t go because of me, Kate,’ Mrs Murphy wept. ‘He never told you but he wanted to go right at the beginning – he was that excited but he’s all I’ve got now, you see, and I talked him out of it. Here, he left this letter, you read it so’s you’ll understand.’

  Charlie was nothing of a writer.

  Dear Auntie Mollie,

  I have to join up; there were men in the mine said I was feart but you know I was never a coward. If I get killed you’re down as my next of kin so you’ll be alright. Tell Kate to wait.

  Love from Charlie

  Kate read the letter in growing anger. Wait, tell Kate to wait, wait for what? She was furious with Charlie for putting her into this position for there could be no doubt of what Mrs Murphy was thinking as she clasped Kate’s unresisting hands and smiled at her through her tears.

  ‘I knew right from the first day he saw you, Kate love, and I’m that pleased. You will wait, won’t you? It’ll be over soon and he’s a good man, my Charlie.’

  Kate pulled her hands away; somewhere in the very back of her mind, in a place she never wanted to visit, she could hear her mother screaming. She began to panic. ‘I have to get home, there’s the tea to see to. Da’s fretting about the boys.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Kate. I’ll come over later and show Liam the letter. What a lot of grief we have suffered together.’

  Kate could bear no more. What grief had old Mrs Murphy shared with Liam? She stopped halfway across the fence. Dear God and his blessed mother – she wasn’t an old woman at all. Kate did a speedy reckoning in her head. Mrs Murphy was the same age as Liam and Liam, Liam was forty-five. That was old, old, old. Oh, face it, Kate, be honest. For the first time in her life she thought of her father as a man. This past few months he had been drawn and haggard because of his unvoiced grief and worry over his sons but usually he was tall and straight and strong, a man any woman would be happy to love. That was it. Mrs Murphy had been a widow since ever Kate could remember; naturally she was drawn to a man like Liam but that Liam could ever think of anyone but his beloved Mary Kate . . . no, it was unthinkable. Liam could not possibly love Mrs Murphy. Why, she was nothing like Mary Kate. Kate felt almost lightheaded with relief. How stupid she had been to worry so. She skipped over the fence and went into her kitchen.

  Her pies always gave her such a feeling of accomplishment. The thought of actually selling her pies for money surfaced again. Two less wages now. The Kennedys had been living the life of Riley these last few years with all that money coming in. The bairns had got used to a Saturday penny and even half a bar of chocolate some Saturdays when the grocer’s laddie came round on his bicycle to tempt pit wives whose men hadn’t drunk their pitiful wages away on Friday night. Well, belts had been tight before and could be again, but if she was to sell a pie or two at the weekends to the pubs she would be helping her less-fortunate neighbours in more ways than one. She would be supplementing Liam’s wage and she would be helping those poor women out there who had to face drunken husbands as they staggered home from the public house. Was it not drinking on an empty stomach that caused the worst drunkenness?

  For a few minutes Kate allowed herself to bask in the glow of seeing herself as a modern-day Florence Nightingale and then she laughed at her fancies and got on with her baking. Liam would never countenance it. So sure of this was she that she never even mentioned it to him when he came in dirty and exhausted. Coal dust. It got everywhere; under your fingernails, up your nose, in your hair, in your mouth, in your eyes and ears and every other opening in the body. Liam stood – in his drawers – and allowed Kate to pour bucket after bucket of cold water over him and then she filled the hip bath with the water she had been boiling and soon the smell of carbolic soap fought with the delicious smell of her baking pies and won – only to lose in its turn to the smell of coal that always hung in the air.

  Mrs Murphy timed her arrival perfectly. Liam was clean, dry, dressed, and sitting at the table when she knocked tentatively at the door and came in.

  ‘Oh, you’re at your tea, Liam. I’ll come back; a man needs his meal after his shift.’

  Liam had jumped up as soon as she had entered the room. ‘No, no, Mrs Murphy, you’ll have a cup of tea with me, with us. Me and Kate fair enjoy our fly cup together afore the wee ones come in.’

  ‘Just like you and the poor dear departed Mary Kate used to, I’ve no doubt, Liam. Wasn’t it the same with me and my Frank.’

  Liam could hardly remember his wife ever having time to sit and have tea with him. She always seemed to be running after one or other of the babies but he smiled at Mrs Murphy and held a chair for her, Kate’s chair.

  ‘Kate, love, there’s enough for Mrs Murphy to join us, is there not? Set another place like a good lassie.’

  And like a good lassie Kate did but her mouth was set with rigidly controlled anger. In one sentence he had rele-gated her from woman of the house to wee lassie. Sure, if Charlie Inglis had walked in the door she would have married him at once. Mrs Murphy was crying over the letter from Charlie.

  Liam let her speak and spoke only when her emotional outburst had washed itself away.

  ‘He’s left you all right like a good son. Aye, I know he’s your nephew but that’s not the way you see him. To tell you the truth he’s a better man than I thought he was. He couldn’t let the bairns like my Kevin fight for him, now could he?’

  He was holding her trembling hands tightly in his.

  ‘Da?’ said Kate before she could stop herself and he flushed a little and sat back in his chair.

  ‘I’ll take more tea, Katie love, and you, Mrs Murphy, you’ll take a little of this pie. Charlie would want us to help you now and we’ll not let him down.’

  He smiled at Kate but she did not melt and kept her mouth set in disapproval.

  ‘Is it worse for us old folks, worrying for our sons, Liam,’ said Mrs Murphy with a return of her coyness, ‘or is it them that’s missing their lovers that’s most in need of loving care and attention?’

  ‘Neither. It’s the laddies over there, on both sides, God help them, that’s in need of our prayers.’

  Chastened, Kate and Mrs Murphy smiled tentatively at one another and tried to enjoy their tea.

  Later, when Mrs Murphy was leaving, having insisted on helping Kate with the washing up, she pressed Charlie’s letter into the girl’s hand.

  ‘You keep this, lass; you’ll want the address although I’m sure he’ll be writing to you soon.’

  Kate folded the letter up and put it away in a kitchen drawer. ‘Charlie Inglis, you cheekie wee bantam, don’t you dare propose to me through yer auntie – if that is what ye’ve done.’ She would never write to him, well, not unless he wrote first. It would be rude not to answer a soldier’s letter and him away fighting for home and hearth.

  It was weeks before a letter did arrive, weeks in which Kate had almost forgotten the pathetic little letter
to his aunt. There might be a war on but here in Auchenbeath one had to go on with the daily round of chores, chores that the war did not ease. At least there was no fear of Liam joining up. Every day he went to the pit where the talk was always of what was happening in France or Belgium and sadly of the losses of the men who had once worked beside them at the coalface. What had this glorious war brought them? They had exchanged the dark, frightening world of underground for the darker, even more frightening pits called trenches that ran with mud and dirt, death and disease.

  Better to have stayed down the pit.

  In his letter Charlie said nothing of his feelings of fear or horror; he never admitted that he would have been better to have stayed safe at home but Kate knew. Charlie, the brave wee bantam from Glasgow who had always had the answers at his fingertips, was adrift in a world he could not handle. His letters clutched desperately at normality and the normality was Kate. Suddenly she found that her friend who had joined the army had been replaced by a lover, the ardent lover of the Baker’s Burn. He spoke of his delight in their simple picnics, of the beauty of the Baker’s Burn and the joy he had found there – what joy? She had run away from him. He wanted to get this over with so that they could return to their idyllic pre-war existence, only now it would be more wonderful for he and Kate would be man and wife. He confessed himself surprised that he had never realized just how deep were his feelings but she was a woman and she must have known. She was to wait for him, she had to; he could bear anything here if she did. Other men were cracking under the strain but he had his dreams of Kate and the bairns and lovely, peaceful Auchenbeath and so he would survive.

  How to answer such an epistle? Kate went to the miners club every day and read the newspapers from cover to cover. Often she had to share with other women and was still often asked to read the news for those who could not. Could the reporters really convey the hell of Charlie’s existence? Enough; enough that Kate found it imposs-ible to write to tell Charlie to slow down, she did not love him, she hardly knew him. She liked him fine; he made her laugh; but her life was Liam and the bairns, especially Bridie. How could she even consider marriage when Bridie and Colm had years at the school ahead of them and she would keep them at their lessons? She would not fail with these two as she had so abysmally failed with the others. Maybe one of them would – well Bridie anyway, for even the most devoted of sisters could tell that Colm wasn’t all that bright – maybe Bridie would do something with her life . . . a teacher maybe . . . she had a nice voice . . . opera. Kate laughed . . . a miner’s daughter from Auchenbeath an opera singer. I haven’t the slightest notion how you get to be a singer, but I’ll find out, you bet I will. That vow, like too many others, was buried under the massive slag heap of effort that went into survival.

  Daydreams were not helping her write to Charlie. She stared at the blank piece of paper and gnawed on the end of her pen. No little voice whispered in her ear, ‘Watch, Kate, handle the next few minutes with great care.’

  I can’t hurt him just yet. I’ll tell him when this is all over but I can’t tell a lie so I’ll say nothing about marriage at all.

  And for the next two years Kate wrote weekly letters to Patrick and Kevin and Charlie, letters full of homely family news, of how well wee Bridie could read, that Colm had finally stopped wetting his bed, that Deirdre seemed very happy in service to the Duke of Buccleuch. She hadn’t liked the butler at first but she was used to him now and she really liked the duke who spoke to her as if she were a real person and not just a kitchen maid. She even had a dress for dances that one of the young ladies had given her; quite fancied herself in that dress did Deirdre.

  By 1916 conscription had to be brought in since the first hysterical flush of enthusiasm for killing and being killed had long since palled and – Patrick was killed in a place called the Somme. The War Office regretted . . .

  Kate didn’t tell Charlie or Kevin. She had to write the first letter three times because tears kept spilling over and there was a pain just under her breast bone that made it very difficult for her to breathe. Words formed under her hand but all she could see was Patrick’s sweet smile and all she could hear was his voice denying his talents or thanking her for services it had been her pleasure as well as her duty to carry out.

  ‘Grand pies, our Kate.’

  She put her head down on the table and wept again. Would these tears ever dry up? Patrick, what did you get to eat these past months? Did death hurt? You were always such a brave wee laddie. Please God, don’t let it have hurt him . . . the way it hurt Mam. The memories came flooding back. Mary Kate on the blood-stained bed screaming and trying to be quiet because of her frightened children. Did you scream, Patrick? I wish I’d been there to help . . . Don’t be stupid, Kate Kennedy, you’re wallowing in your misery. There’s Bridie and Colm and Da, my poor da, and Kevin, that must be told, and Charlie . . .

  She reached for the paper.

  We’re managing fine here though things are quite dear. Da is doing the baith gardens and Mrs Murphy and me always has good soup on the fire though bread is not always available. It’s little enough of a sacrifice . . .

  Then one Saturday Deirdre did not come home for her day off. The woodcutter who usually delivered her at the foot of the brae had no idea why she had not turned up.

  ‘I couldnae wait for her, Kate, wi’ all this to deliver.’

  ‘Well, maybe the duchess is entertaining and needed her. It’s happened before. She’ll get next Saturday.’

  He looked troubled. ‘The family’s in Selkirk this time o’ the year, but I’ll be up next week and if she’s coming I’ll bring her.’

  Kate watched him as he went off on his rounds. Something had happened; she knew it but just hoped that it was something that Liam could handle. The woodcutter brought the letter the following Saturday.

  ‘She’s fine, more than fine, but she’ll have told you in her letter.’

  He laughed and drove off and Kate looked at the letter. She hadn’t liked that laugh. It was the way Charlie laughed sometimes, and even Kevin, at things she didn’t understand.

  ‘Oh God, not that.’ The words of guilt and explanation and self-pity poured off the page.

  We never meant to but it was the day we heard Davey would get called up and then when I missed he said we should get married fore he went and his grace didn’t want to lose Davey and I’ve got the cottage you’ll tell Da I’m no a bad girl and he’ll love the baby and Davey’s a fine man and a good worker he wanted to meet you and Da but the papers came the young ladies gave me a real silk dress for the wedding and the duke gave Davey real silver knives and forks the woodcutter will bring you please come tae see me for Davey’s away I can work for a few months yet and I’m fine but I’m frightened tae come hame till you tell me what Da says

  your loving sister Mrs Davey Spence

  Inconsequential things forced themselves on Kate’s attention. Deirdre’s punctuation or lack of it. ‘The wee besum didn’t pay over much attention at the school. How will I tell Da? She’s scared and she’s lonely . . . and she’s pregnant. I wonder what that feels like. It should have been me first.’

  By the time she got home Kate had recovered from her slight fit of sullens that her young sister had experienced so much that she had not and inexplicably she had been jealous. Right now, however, she had to find a way to explain to Liam. In the end, stammering over the words, she handed him the letter. He read it and turned without a word and went out. Later she saw him digging like a madman in the potato patch and she cautioned Colm and even his favourite, wee Bridie, to stay out of reach of his hard right hand.

  ‘Mistress Spence will be frightened in her condition without her mammy, Kate. Make sure you are with her when the time comes.’

  That was all he said for several months. Kate went to see Deirdre several times. Sometimes she took Bridie with her and they stayed in the tiny but comfortable cottage that was Deirdre’s new home but Liam never ask
ed about her and after her first hopeful questioning look at her sister, Deirdre stopped asking about him.

  ‘I’m not a bad girl, Kate. You did tell him I’m not bad,’ was all she had said and Kate felt guilty for she had actually never discussed Deirdre with their father. Liam had become so remote since Patrick’s death, so tense as if he were waiting for even more bad news.

  ‘He’ll come round when the baby comes. He wants me to be with you. It’s just the shock and Patrick . . . he’s not over Patrick.’

  Liam got drunk the night they heard that Kevin had died. ‘What more do you want from me, God,’ he yelled into the sky. ‘Babbies, they were just babbies, them and the others, poor wee babbies greeting for their mammies and you let it happen. Sweet merciful God. Sure if you exist at all you disgust me.’

  Kate dealt with him and then she stripped and scrubbed herself with cold water to rid herself of the smell of vomit. Exhausted, she crept into bed beside Bridie who pushed Kate’s chilled body away in her sleep. All night she lay and listened to Liam crying in the next room and when dawn came she got up and dressed and made the porridge and Liam’s piece. He would go down the pit again. His sons were dead but there were other children to feed and anyway there was no body to lay out and so one did what one had to do. He looked shamefacedly at his oldest daughter for a moment as she stood in the doorway with his tin.

  ‘I’ll not make an excuse, but it’ll never happen again,’ and through their pain their eyes met and consoled each other.

  The morning went on. Kate fed Bridie and Colm. Got them brushed and off to school. Now she had time to think. Where to go to get rid of this unbearable pain? Who was there to talk to, to scream with, to cry with?

  She was outside on the road to Sanquhar. She kept going – and then she had arrived. She sighed a deep sigh as she stood outside the door and the sigh seemed to loosen parts that had been frozen since her mother’s death. She pushed the old door and it opened as stiffly as it had always opened. Nothing had changed. It was just as it had been the last time she had been there, the morning of Mary Kate’s funeral.