‘Bridie was here when you were having your wee sleep, Charlie,’ she told her husband when she took him his midday dinner. ‘She’s maybe away to Canada after the war. What do ye think of that?’
‘There’s grand pictures of Canada in the National Geographic, Kate, a beautiful place. What’s put Canada into her head? She’s never been further than Edinburgh with our Colm.’
‘It’s Colm’s taking her to Canada,’ explained Kate and told him about the letter and Bud and beautiful red apples.
‘I got a red apple all the way from Canada once,’ said Charlie. ‘It was a lucky day for me, one of the few I went to the school, and there was this fella had gone to Canada from Glasgow and made a packet, thousands of pounds a year the man was making and he never forgot his roots, the teacher said. You know I wondered for years what the hell roots had to do with people. Put a funny picture in my head; this wee Glasgow Keilie in Canada carrying around roots like a tattie. But roots or no, they didn’t hold him back and when he made his millions he sent a crate of apples every year on a ship to Glasgow and every bairn in the school got one. Never tasted anything like it. Fair makes my mouth water to think on it. I’ve always liked apples.’
Kate looked at him and almost wept again. Never once in their married life could she remember Charlie expressing a like or dislike. Always he took what was put in front of him and said, ‘That was nice, Kate. Aren’t you the grand cook?’ How little she had really known of him. They had been married for twenty-five years. They had been alone for a while, then the children had come, and now they were alone again. Thank God it was not too late or too foolish to think about getting to know him. She could now say easily that she loved him, that she had probably loved him all the time but had been too frightened, too emotionally immature to admit it. It had to be more than duty that had kept her by his side, more than the words of the marriage service – until death do you part.
‘You’re looking at me like I was something in a zoo, Katie love. Was you surprised to hear me talk about being a bairn? Were ye ever a bairn yersel’, my wee Katie, or were ye always minding other folk?’ He laughed at himself in embarrassment. ‘Do ye know I mind the first time I ever set eyes on you, skipping o’er the fence wi’ yer skirts up and the taps of yer stockings showing. Our Margaret’s no half so bonnie as ye were, Kate, and as ye still are to me.’
‘Charlie,’ whispered Kate. ‘I wish you’d just once told me . . . you like a red apple.’
‘I like bananas, and cabbage with a bit butter, and I like you, Katie Kennedy Inglis.’
‘I like you too, Charlie Inglis. In fact . . .’ Kate sat on the edge of the bed and he shifted over to make room for her, ‘In fact,’ she blushed like a teenager and could say no more.
Charlie laughed and softly shook his head. ‘Katie. Last Hogmanay was the grandest and happiest night of my life. Did I show you then that I loved you, Mrs Inglis? And if I had the strength I’d show you again right now.’
‘I love you too, Charlie. There, I’ve said it.’ She leaned over and kissed him full on the lips and somehow she was lying on top of him and instinct showed her how to do most of the work and when they climaxed together she screamed his name, ‘Charlie, Charlie, oh, dear God, I love you.’ She lay like a wanton, her blouse open and her skirts around her hips and then they slept. When she awoke she cried for her dead son and the waste of his young life and all the wasted years of theirs.
Charlie patted her back. ‘Ye never cease to surprise me, Katie Inglis. I wonder what yon fine doctor fellow would think of the medicine you’ve just given me. It’s too cold to get up yet, but the first day of spring, whatever he says, I’m getting out o’ this bed and back on my bike.’
Charlie was never able to ride his bicycle again but as the years of the war went on with victory following defeat he was able to take a more active part in the business. Kate hired a convalescing soldier to deliver pies locally and Bessie went proudly on down the middle of all the country roads while Charlie stayed at home and became a wrapper. Kate soon realized that it was very important for her husband to feel useful and that he would rather sit at the scrubbed marble bakery tables and wrap baked goods than sit at his fire and listen to his precious wireless. He sorely missed Liam and never again took any interest in football but he hungered to see his granddaughter.
‘She’ll bring the bairn in the better weather,’ Kate would assure him. Or: ‘She’s teething. Margaret won’t want us to see her girny; mind how Margaret’s teeth kept us up half the night. Tell her to give wee Elizabeth a chop bone to help bring them through.’
The only comfort to Kate was that George’s family seemed to have been abandoned by the young family too. George’s blowsy mother, who had never been a customer at the bakery, began to walk the mile from her crowded council house to the bakery to attempt to establish some kind of camaraderie between herself and her daughter-in-law’s family. Kate hated these visits. She had never been good at making friends and she certainly could find nothing in common with Mrs Bell. As always, she tried to be courteous but, as Mrs Bell got more and more hurt by her son’s neglect, it became more and more difficult.
‘Our Annie says they treat her like a servant when their smart friends are in. She has to call your Margaret Mrs – can you imagine that? Her own sister-in-law and a wee lassie that was at the school wi’ her. And she calls her own brother mister, in company like. Your Margaret always was stuck up but my George. And we’re not welcome up there in their smart apartment; it’s not a flat like everybody else has, it’s an apartment and they’ve bought it outright, nae money going tae the bank every month like what you probably have to do wi’ this place unless it’s paid up wi’ all the money you’ve made all these years.’
‘I’ve labelled the pie without onions, Mrs Bell,’ said Kate repressively.
‘Well, I’m not wanting yer pie, Kate, with or without onions. I can see where your lassie gets her toffee nose. You’re no better than the rest of us, Kate Inglis Bakeries. I mind on you, the ragged bairn of a ragged miner and an Irishman at that. I wouldnae have yer pie if ye gave it o us.’
Kate watched Margaret’s mother-in-law stomp out of the bakery and sat down. She felt sick and dizzy.
‘I can’t gossip, Charlie,’ she told her husband later. ‘I never have been able to, and certainly not about my own daughter.’
‘It’s wrong if he’s not speaking to his own mother.’
‘I know it’s wrong and that she was hurt and upset and wanted to find out how they treated us. I suppose if I had told her we haven’t been up to Glasgow either, she would have left feeling better, but she stood there and her fat, beery face just got redder and redder and seemed to get bigger and I wanted to be sick.’
‘You should have called me. I would have sorted her for you. You should know that without asking, Kate Inglis. There’s never been much ye’ve asked me to do, Katie, or that I’ve been able to do, but I can certainly throw loud mouths out of yer kitchen for ye.’
‘Oh, Charlie, my proud wee bantam,’ Kate almost wept and, quite naturally, went into the haven of his arms.
He held her against his chest gently, almost she felt, as if she were Margaret. For a moment they stood while Kate drew strength from her husband and then, just as gently, he held her away from him.
‘A bantam,’ he laughed. ‘And here’s me spent my hale life thinking I was the cock o’ the north.’
He sat down in his chair by the fire and leaned back against the old comfortable cushions.
He’s an old man, thought Kate. I nearly left it too late. Please God, let me have made him happy. She put her hand on his shoulder gently. ‘My dear wee bantam. Come on. Let’s sit and listen to the Brains Trust. Julian Huxley is on the panel and ye always like him. I’ll make a wee cup of tea . . .’
He covered her hand with his. ‘I meant to tell ye the news, Kate; that’s why I came into the bakery. Operation Point Blank has started; that’s a massive bombing programme. The Huns’ll b
e sorry they ever dropped their wee buzz bombs on London; we’re out to flatten Germany and wi’ Russia squeezing the wee bugger from the west the war’ll soon be over and Patrick will come marching home.’
Patrick’s letters were also full of the sense of impending victory. I can’t explain it, he wrote, but, in the middle of all this madness I have the most overwhelming sense of peace. I’m not going to be killed; don’t ask me how I know, but I just feel that Almighty God has other plans for me. Would it hurt you too much, Mum, if I did not return to the university to finish my degree but went instead straight into the seminary? I think maybe Margaret was right when she said I didn’t have enough brains to be a university man. I think too it’s got something to do with being able to learn what one’s heart is really interested in. Studying at the university was torture but I can’t wait to study for the priesthood. Every page of every textbook will be a joy because it will bring me closer and closer to my Lord. All I ask is to be allowed now to serve Him but I will finish my BA if that’s what you want.
‘Germany can’t hold out much longer. For the sake of the poor people of Germany, who are not to blame for this insanity, Hitler must be stopped. I’m helping out here with some adult literacy courses. You wouldn’t believe the number of men who can’t read or write; they’ve never had the chance but they feel the war is almost over and there’s got to be a better world for all of us after this terrible struggle. There are thousands of courses being offered to help give these men a better life after the war. And Rab Butler is raising the school leaving age to fifteen and everybody is to get proper secondary education, not just extended primary lessons. Have you heard too that there is to be a family allowance, five shillings a week for each child after the first one? What a difference that is going to make to Britain. Keep your wireless on, Dad, and hear about the grand world and all the opportunities for poor people. A free National Health Service, can you imagine, and can you think what a difference that would have made to your lives, you and Mam?
‘Well, it all sounds almost too good to be true, does it no, Katie love? Free everything for the people. Does the money grow on trees to pay for it?’
‘All I can think of is that this war will soon be over and he’ll be coming home. We’ll write that we don’t mind about the university, Charlie, if that’s fine with you. I was wrong to push him into it, wasn’t I? Seems I ruined all their lives and, God knows, I only wanted the best for them.’
She could say it to him now. She could sit companionably with him in the evenings and listen to his favourite programmes, ITMA or the Brains Trust, and they could talk as they had never done before. Their life together had reached a pleasant stage. In bed they lay happily talking, sometimes – but not often – touching and loving. Charlie seemed to have reached a stage where he no longer needed so much sex; perhaps it was age or frailty and although Kate harboured a little regret that her decision to be more of what she saw as a real wife to Charlie had come so late, she accepted the new stage in their relationship with gladness. Whenever they did make love she was fulfilled, even if she did not always reach that breathless stage of intensity, that pleasurable, almost painful, climax that left her quivering with ecstasy.
‘If I’d really thought the laddie couldnae handle the lessons, Katie, I would have put my foot down. I always knew he wasn’t as quick as Margaret and that’s maybe where we made a mistake, the both of us, Katie love, not telling her earlier that she could go to Edinburgh as well. Ye were a grand mother, Kate Inglis, to the three of them. There’s not many people that’ll come to the end of their days and be able to look their maker in the face and say I never hurt anybody and I always did my best.’
‘My best wasn’t good enough, but I cannae see as how I could have done anything any different. I’ll live what time’s left to me hoping our Margaret will show me she doesn’t hold it against me by bringing wee Elizabeth down to see us.’
‘She’s your lassie, Kate. Write and tell her she’s welcome if you cannae speak to her on the phone.’
Kate did. She swallowed her pride and telephoned her daughter. She had written down everything she wanted to say on a piece of paper so that she could not forget in the excitement of the moment. Since Liam’s death she had spoken several times to Margaret, but this time she was going to talk to her daughter, really talk, and please God, she would make her understand. She didn’t get the chance. Margaret was too busy to have a long chat.
‘I’ll bring Elizabeth down as soon as we have a weekend free, Mam. You can’t believe how busy we are. The business is expanding. George is going to be ready for the end of this war, but we will come down just as soon as I see my way clear to take some time off. You can’t believe how big she’s getting and I want to show her off to her grandparents.’
The war went on inexorably to its final moments and Kate stopped begging Margaret to visit them. It had to be enough that at least they could speak to one another occasionally on the telephone. Even Elizabeth began to chat to her grandparents on Sunday evenings and Charlie lived from Sunday night to Sunday night. Kate, however, lived only for the end of the war and Patrick’s return.
20
AS ALWAYS, KATE woke early. She looked at the clock on the dresser as she dressed and, to her joy, realized that there was time to go out into the garden before she started baking. She filled the kettle and pulled it on to the always warm stove and then opened the door to the May morning.
The grass was wet under the trees and the blue wild hyacinths bowed their heads under the weight of the dew that had not yet burned off. Kate walked slowly, savouring the moments, occasionally bending to snap the deadhead of a daffodil off its stem. She smelled the lilacs, white and purple, and smiled at her memories.
‘Mammy, Mammy, there’s purple berry trees in this garden.’ That was Patrick, the spring they moved in, and they’d always called lilacs purple berry trees after that.
Will you be here afore my purple berry trees bloom again, Patrick? Surely Germany can’t hold out much longer.
She went to her borders, filled with memories of Dr Hyslop. It was still too early in the year for flowers but the plants were beginning to grow green and sturdy and strong; she knelt down and pulled out a few weeds that had managed to germinate themselves in the few days since she had been in the garden, and then she straightened her back in the old way and looked up towards the hills.
The spring’s glorious, Mam, and there’s nowhere nicer than a garden on a morning like this. Do you see this place, Mam, your Kate’s? A bit different from the garden in the miners’ row, is it not? And look at my house, still sleeping there in the early morning mist. My Charlie’s there, a good man, Mam. I wish you’d known him. I’ve stood here winter and summer and pictured my bairns asleep in their beds, warm and clean. They’re gone, Mam. Maybe you and my dad have Liam with you. I like to think on that. And my lassie; she’s away from me too and she never comes back, always talks and makes excuses, but never comes, and Charlie frets for her and my heart hardens but he says no. Give her time, he says, she’s busy like you always were, Katie love, building up her business. What business it is, she never says, Mam, but they have a big house in Glasgow and a woman to cook and clean and one to look after wee Elizabeth. Best not to think on Elizabeth; she’ll be at the school afore long and I’ve never seen her. What would you say to me, Mam, about your granddaughter? Go and see her yourself, Kate Kennedy. But I’m frightened; isn’t that daft, a woman my age, but I want her to say, Can you and my dad not come up for a few days? She talks that posh now. Charlie says, that’s what ye wanted, Katie, ye’d never think she grew up in a mining village. Be pleased for her. And I am, Mam, but it hurts sometimes not to see her, but more to think she doesn’t really want us, or she’d make an effort, would she not?
Dear God, it’s a glorious morning and it’s going tae be a beautiful day. My heart’s singing – is it just for the spring or is there something in the air? You’d never believe there was a war on, not with the May blossoms
rioting in the hedgerow, that pleased wi’ itself to be blooming again.
Strangely at peace, Kate returned to the house to find her bakers already at work and the tea made.
‘There’s a tray all ready for Charlie, Mrs Inglis,’ said Mrs Peden. ‘We didnae want tae disturb you, having a wee while to yersel’ in the garden. It’s awfully bonnie this time of the year, is it not?’
Kate was touched by the unexpected kindness and smiled. ‘It is bonnie, Mrs Peden. I think sometimes I’d like fine to retire and spend my days in the garden. I’ll cut some lilac for each of you to take home later. I love the scent of it in a room.’
She picked up the tray and went out leaving the women staring after her in surprise. ‘No often ye get a bit of chat from the missus. Mind you, since the bairn got killed, she seems a bit softer, would ye not say? Mind, we’d better get to work afore her mood wears off or she’ll have us scrubbing from floor to ceiling.’
But Kate’s good mood did not wear off.
Charlie heard it first on his wireless in the bedroom.
‘Kate,’ he called, ‘Katie, come quick,’ and, her heart in her mouth, she ran.
‘It’s over, Kate.’ He was trembling and she pushed him back against his pillows. ‘Naw, Katie love. Help me out o’ the bed for I want to tell ye again standin’ on my own two feet.’
‘Charlie, what’s wrong? You’ll give yourself’ a turn. Lie back and tell me. What’s over?’
And then she realized what he was saying, what he had to be saying, and she put her arm around his waist and helped him out of the bed where he had spent most of the last few years.
They smiled at one another while he said solemnly, ‘The war is over, Mrs Inglis. That wee German bugger has committed suicide, God rest his soul, and the Jerries have surrendered.’
Kate could say nothing but stood with her arm around her husband while she tried to take in what he had said. The war was over. Whether Hitler had committed suicide before or after the surrender was immaterial; the war was over and, oh dear God and His blessed mother, her son, her son would soon be coming home.
A Pinch of Salt Page 23
