A Song of Sixpence (8 page)

Was I dreaming? Apparently not, for when this ended, without pausing, without acknowledging the rattle of applause, before even someone yelled, ‘ Give us another,' Mother dashed intrepidly into another rousing tune, the famous Pipe Band favourite of the Highland Infantry, ‘ Cock o' the North'. If the first number had pleased the Levenford contingent this completely won them. Before she was halfway through she had them singing:

Piper Finlater, Piper Finlater,
Played the Cock o' the North!

While the last verse still vibrated against the roof more applause burst out, stamping of heavy boots, and repeated shouts of ‘'core, 'core'. And now Mother was in full cry. Scarcely hesitating she broke into what I can only call a medley, or rather an improvisation—since she played many of them by ear—of the old Scottish airs: ‘Ye Banks and Braes', ‘Green Grow the Rashes, O', ‘Over the Sea to Skye', and ending with the local favourite, ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond'. The effect was tremendous, even those most unresponsive in the body of the hall, whom I had thought to be our enemies, were conquered, beating time now, nodding and humming, swept, away by this brilliant melodic surge of sentiment and national spirit.

I was glowing with pride, my palms hot with clapping in homage to this wonderful mother whose undreamed-of cleverness and skill had saved the day for all of us.

And they wanted more. Even when Mother rose from the piano they would not let her go. Someone unseen in the wings, must have signed to her to yield. What would she play now? The answer came quickly and it seemed that her eyes had sought us out. She struck the first chords of Moore's ‘Far from the Land', a tribute, not to her old loyalties, but to the new. And she was singing it, too, calmly and confidently, as though she were sitting at the piano at home. I scarcely breathed as her voice rose, clear and sweet, in the perfect attentive stillness of the hall.

Father, leaning back, twirling his moustache, and with a strange rapt smile, had kept his gaze riveted on Mother as though he could scarcely believe his eyes. And when at last after a final curtsy, she left the stage, he rose abruptly and, demonstrating in every action that the event of the evening was over, he took me by the collar, steered me down the aisle and out of the hall.

We had not long to wait for Mother. She came hurrying down the steps of the upper entrance wearing her coat, with a fringed white shawl round her head, and ran straight towards us. Father gave her such a hug it lifted her off her feet.

‘Gracie, Gracie …' he murmured in her ear, ‘I knew you had it in you.'

‘Oh, Mother!' I was hopping with delight. ‘ You were splendid.'

Mother gave a little gasp.

‘It was an awful hash of sentiment but I fancied it was the only thing, and I think they liked it.'

‘They loved it, Mother,' I shouted.

‘Couldn't have been better,' Father purred.

‘I didn't want to go on so long, but Lady Meikle made me.'

‘Ah,' said Father, with a satisfied click of his tongue. ‘I knew the Whalebone would be on our side. But what made you think to do it in the first place? Did she give you the idea?'

‘No.'

‘Who, then?'

Mother gave him a sly glance.

‘It must have been your Mr Martell.'

Shouts of delirious laughter from all three of us. What joy, what bliss! What a triumph for the Carrolls.

‘Oh, we mustn't, Con,' Mother said suddenly. ‘Think of poor Maggie. You know, all the time I was playing, somehow at the back of my mind I felt I was doing it for her.'

We walked back together under the shining moon, Mother and Father arm in arm, talking, talking as though they would never stop, but I did not feel jealous or that I was at all excluded, for Mother with her free hand had found mine and snuggled it into the pocket of her coat. There she held it cosily, all the way home.

How bright the moon was, how clear and high. And our star, the Carroll lucky star, was rising too, yes, rising again, clear and high, to join the galaxy above.

The next day was Sunday and, perhaps in a spirit of thanks-giving, we went to Mass at Drinton, coming home to a late and rather special lunch of roast duck followed by the trifle, with crystallized cherries and whipped cream, that Mother made so well. In the dwindling winter afternoon, after Father had had a nap, Mother suggested a stroll along the shore. The golden aura of yesterday still lingered about her and, in addition, a kind of happy languor which, from the dreamy reminiscent glances she directed towards him, I somehow associated with the attentions of Father. Already I had begun to sense the strong physical attraction that existed between my parents which in the beginning, overcoming every conceivable obstacle, had brought them together almost from different worlds and which now endured in a close responsive union. In later years, when I came to read the records of other childhoods so often marred by constant parental strife, by conjugal incompatibility and mutual hatred, I became more fully aware that in their marriage my mother and father were uniquely fortunate. Although there were sudden minor storms, provoked by Father's quick temper, they never lasted more than a few hours and ended in spontaneous reconciliation. And always between them, even in their silences, there existed a mutual understanding that made my home a safe, warm place in an often threatening world.

This feeling was palpably in the air as, having been to Geddes Point, in the direction opposite to Rosebank, which for reasons I dimly glimpsed Mother always shunned, we were returning slowly through a soft mist gathering on the dead, deserted estuary. The air was so still that the sob of the tide came like the faint echo from some distant sea-shell. Mother idled in front, accompanied by Darkie, the Snodgrass farm cat, which often attached itself to her on these excursions. Father and I had fallen some paces behind, competing in a game of ‘skiffers' and being cautioned, though indulgently, by Mother for our shouts as we counted the skiffs when the flat stones, smoothly polished by endless tides, went skimming and leaping over the calm grey water.

Suddenly, as he threw, Father gave a short wincing cough, straightened, and put his handkerchief to his face. I looked up in surprise, then, with the air of making an announcement, called out importantly:

‘Father's nose is bleeding!'

Mother turned round. I saw her expression change. I saw too that the handkerchief was covering Father's mouth. Mother came near.

‘Conor, it's your cough.'

‘It's nothing.' He had moved the handkerchief and was staring almost stupidly at a small scarlet stain. ‘ Only a spot. I must just have strained myself.'

‘But you coughed,' she persisted, in concern. ‘You must sit down and rest.'

‘It's nothing. Just a stitch in my side.' By way of evidence he produced a very slight artificial cough. ‘See, it's all gone.'

Mother made no answer. Her lips came together in a manner more determined than submissive, and as we resumed our way, though she glanced at Father from time to time, there was no languor in her eyes, and her silence persisted until we reached our house.

This cough of Father's, appearing intermittently, particularly in damp weather, and dismissed in his off-hand style as ‘a touch of bronchitis' or even, with a sort of possessive pride as though it were an attribute peculiar to him, as ‘my bronchial tendency' and alleviated by herbal remedies of his own, had come to be accepted in the family, despite occasional protests by Mother, as a natural phenomenon. I thought nothing of it, and its relation to that absurdly small spot of crimson which Father had himself made light of seemed so improbable or at least so unimportant that immediately we got home I went off whistling to the farm with Darkie to fetch the milk, an evening task that had now devolved on me.

In the byre the milking was still in progress and for perhaps twenty minutes, while the hot milk squirted and frothed into the pail, I waited, amused by the antics of the cat as it caught and lapped the driblets that splashed to the stone flags. Sauntering up the road with my jug of milk I was totally unprepared for the sight of Dr Duthie's gig standing outside our house, a shock heightened by the fact that the gig lamps were already lit and, magnified by the misty dusk, seeming to typify the personality of the village doctor, were glaring at me like two enormous eyes.

This Dr Duthie was a formidable figure, and not to me alone. A fierce old red-faced man, past seventy, dressed invariably in corduroy breeches, shiny brown leggings and a baggy velveteen jacket, he stamped in and out of sick-rooms like a Highland bull, discharging his diagnosis in a voice comparable to the Erskine foghorn, so forcibly indeed that when he had attended me I was often hit by a spray of saliva upon my cheek. By all the canons of romantic fiction this rough exterior should have harboured a heart of gold. It did not. The doctor was coarse and often brutal with his patients. Caring nothing for public opinion, he was generally admitted to be ‘a hard nut to crack'. He had a farm in the back country where he reared saddle-back pigs and was often heard to declare that he preferred them to his patients. If he had a weakness, beyond the bottle of whisky he drank daily and which served him as an
elixir vitae
—for he seemed to grow more potent with every dram—it was for a pretty woman. He squeezed the dairy maids at all the farms he visited while they giggled and pretended to protest, bumping them against the steading wall with his knee. While his manner towards her was less amorous, since he had the wit to know where to stop, I always felt that he had a soft spot for my mother.

Of course, I dared not enter my home while this ogre was in possession. I had suffered enough at his hands. Creeping into the shadow of the wall I peered cautiously into the lighted parlour. Father lay on the sofa, stripped to the waist, while Dr Duthie, with his ear on a short wooden tube, bent over him. Never had I seen my audacious parent at such disadvantage, so subdued, dominated, almost possessed. The sight was unbearable and, turning away, I slid down and sat with my back to the wall, supporting the warm jug of milk between my knees.

A longish interval elapsed before the front door opened and Dr Duthie and my mother appeared on the threshold, both figures clearly visible against the lighted lobby. I crouched lower as the doctor's voice boomed out:

‘Send to the surgery for the medicine. I'll let ye have the cod liver oil and malt as weel. But mind, woman,' he pressed Mother's arm, giving point to his words by a series of reproving yet caressing shakes as though trying to turn her towards him, ‘the main thing is to get him out of here. Didn't I tell you at Rosebank to keep away from the shore? It does nobody good to spend their lives on damp mud and silt. Forbye, river fogs are fair poison for a man with his chest.'

I did not properly interpret this pronouncement, I was too fully occupied in watching Dr Duthie safely off the premises and into his gig. Nor, when I went into the house, was Mother disposed to elaborate upon it. Her mood was not communicative and, relieving me of the milk jug, she quietly set about preparing our tea.

For two days Father remained at home, restively and with a very ill grace, then went back to work. And although I did notice conferences, yes, and arguments, that began, and were continued, between my parents; if I gave any thought to them at all, I assumed them to be connected with the business of the yeast. Everything seemed to have returned to a happy normality. Father, energetic as ever, soon, in typical fashion, discarded his bottle of medicine and consigned the jar of cod liver oil and malt to the dustbin. I was quite unprepared when one April afternoon, as I came rushing in from school, Mother wearing all her best clothes and with the air of having returned from a journey, took me aside.

‘Laurence, we are leaving this house next month and moving to Ardfillan.' Quickly, reassuringly, seeing my look of consternation: ‘To such a nice place, dear. Really a move for the better.'

This sudden prospect of change, always alarming to a child, quite disconcerted me. All at once Ardencaple had never seemed more attractive. I was now altogether at home in school where I had moved up two classes. I liked Pin, and had become friendly with a few of the boys. Last Saturday I had caught two speckled trout in the Gielston burn. And we were to leave all this when everything was going so well for us.

Mother must have read this in my face, for she put her arms round me, smiling at me confidingly, in such a manner that I knew all this to be her doing and that she was deeply pleased with it.

‘Ardfillan is a lovely town, dear. And our new flat is high up on the hill and not far from the moors. I'm sure you'll like it.'

The removal was accomplished with surprising ease and, as Mother had promised, our new home proved to be a great advance upon the little villa we had relinquished. Like the town of Ardfillan, it quite overcame me with its splendours. Reaching uphill from an expanse of estuary so wide as to be almost open sea, Ardfillan was a fashionable place, a select resort with a discreet pier, promenade, and bandstand, yet, at the same time, a residential town favoured by wealthy Winton businessmen who utilized the fast train service to the city, and by others, of equal or greater affluence, who had retired. Big houses, pretentiously styled and surrounded by large enclosed gardens, studded the hillside, making the most of a choice view of the Gareloch and the Kyles of Bute yet in no way intruding upon the wide sweep of heather moor that reached up behind to Glen Fruin and on to the shores of Loch Lomond. There were many superior shops, a private circulating library, and two of the most exclusive schools in Scotland, one Beechfield for boys, the other St Anne's for girls. I soon discerned, too, a particular well bred manner of speech, an accent rather, that stamped and distinguished this society, was indeed obligatory for admission to its membership. There existed, in short, an air of ‘ tone' which Mother immediately liked, which Father ignored and which at first intimidated me.