Anne Douglas (2 page)

Oh, my, it was like hearing about people from another planet, and yet there was Jemima, in contact with them every day! And she was so clever, too, at dressmaking, or making alterations, snipping here, snipping there, to create something new, or else styling Lindy’s hair, advising her on make-up – she was a real tonic to have around. If only she could spend more time at number nineteen! But she was limited to her half days or the occasional Sunday, and then, of course, her mother wanted to see something of her. Still, she did what she could to fit Lindy in, although there was always Neil wanting to see Lindy, too, he being what Myra called her admirer.

He might be now, but at one time he’d been no more than one of the boys she knew at school – fair-haired, handsome, but not one to be interested in. It was only lately that they had begun to go out together, to take pleasure in each other’s company, though without actually falling in love.

This suited Lindy, for she didn’t want to be involved. Becoming involved could end up being married, and then what? You were in the family way. When she thought of that, she thought of her mother and shivered, for her father had said his poor Janie was no more than a bairn herself when she died. How frightened she must have been when she realized what she was facing! To be so young and know you were going to die. Quick, quick, think of something else, Lindy always told herself when she reached that point. Neil, perhaps? Yes, dear, handsome Neil. And on that miserable winter evening, it was Neil who came tapping at the Gillans’ door.

Tall and straight-shouldered, he was wearing a trilby hat and a long black overcoat that was slightly too small – bought at a second-hand shop, Myra guessed when she answered the door, or it might have belonged to one of his brothers. Those MacLaurens were always swapping each other’s clothes, seemingly just taking whatever came to hand. Still, he was a good-looking lad – nice regular features, light grey eyes – Lindy could do worse.

‘Wanting Lindy?’ she asked, standing aside for him to come in, at which he took off his hat.

‘Yes, please.’

His glance went from George Gillan, sitting with the evening paper by the stove, to Struan, rising from the table, lighting a cigarette, and he nodded as they exchanged smiles.

‘Hope you’ve finished your tea?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ returned Myra, ‘but we’ve no’ washed up.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ cried Lindy, appearing from her little room, already wearing her coat and a dark blue pull-on hat. ‘It’s just that we’re going to the pictures, Aunt Myra. Promise I’ll do it all tomorrow, eh?’

‘Promises, promises!’

‘Well, how about Struan taking a turn?’

‘How about it?’ cried Struan, leaping up and jabbing out his cigarette in a saucer. ‘I’m off to the pub!’

‘And you’ve been working with beer all day?’ said Myra. ‘I wonder you don’t get tired of the smell.’

‘I never get tired of the smell.’ Struan laughed. ‘You no’ coming, Dad?’

George, in his forties, with a broad face and light brown hair – looks his son had inherited – shook his head. ‘Och, no. It’s me for the evening paper. Maybe I’ll give Myra a hand first.’

‘That’ll be the day,’ snapped Myra, looking pleased all the same. ‘Well, I’d best clear away. Lindy, if you’re going, you’d better hurry or you might miss the beginning of the film. What is it, anyway?’

‘It’s an old one –
Flying Down to Rio
.’ Lindy’s eyes were sparkling. ‘Got Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in it – their first film together. Now I want to see
Top Hat
– that’s their new one, coming soon.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ George remarked cheerfully as he lit his pipe. ‘But have a good time, eh?’

‘Aye, off you go with William Shakespeare here!’ Struan cried, grinning, at which Lindy frowned and told him to stop his teasing, while Neil flushed scarlet as he replaced his hat.

‘Come on,’ he muttered to Lindy. ‘Goodnight, Mr and Mrs Gillan. We won’t be late back.’

‘Aye, we don’t like Lindy to be too late,’ Myra told him.

George said comfortably, ‘Och, she’ll be all right with Neil.’

‘I’ll be all right anyway!’ cried Lindy.

Outside, facing the night wind in Scott Street, she took Neil’s arm.

‘Now don’t you go simmering over Struan! He just likes to get a rise out of you. Take no notice, is my advice.’

‘He maddens me,’ Neil answered, scowling. ‘He’s like a lot o’ folk. Because I want to be a writer, they think I’m a great jessie. If he wasn’t your brother I’d show him what I can do!’

‘Oh, that’s silly talk, eh? Why do fellows always think they can solve everything by fighting? We’re supposed to be having a good time, instead of worrying about Struan.’

Neil’s face cleared and his smile as he glanced down at Lindy was tender.

‘Sorry, Lindy, you’re right. Let’s forget about Struan and think about Ginger and Fred. That’s what you’d like, eh?’

‘I suppose you’d rather have gone to a cowboy picture? Indians whooping and everybody firing guns?’

‘I don’t mind what I see, Lindy. Just like being with you.’

‘Snap!’ she cried, laughing, as they began to hurry to beat the wind and finished up at the cinema, out of breath, rosy-faced, but warmer and in better humour. There was no queue – what a relief – which meant they could go straight in to their one-shilling seats and settle down to escape the outside world for an hour or two. At least, Lindy could. Neil was not the type ever to put his thoughts aside.

Outside the cinema, the picture show over, the air was chill, though for January it could have been worse.

‘Now, where’s the snow?’ asked Neil. ‘Think we’ll be let off this year?’

‘H’m?’ murmured Lindy, who was still far away in Rio, watching in her mind’s eye Ginger Rogers skilfully following Fred Astaire’s steps, floating so beautifully in her diaphanous dress. Lindy would have given the earth to have one just like it. What was Neil talking about? Snow? Couldn’t imagine snow in Rio, could you? Would she ever see somewhere like that?

‘I was wondering, Lindy, did you ever finish that book I lent you?’ Neil was asking as Lindy pulled on her hat and took his arm in an effort to find shelter against him. ‘You know the one I mean?
Love on the Dole
, by Walter Greenwood?’

‘Oh, yes.
Love on the Dole
. I did finish it, Neil. Awful sad, though, wasn’t it?’

‘It’s meant to be,’ he said eagerly. ‘The story of a family in the Depression? What else could it be? Bet it made you feel you’d like to see a change, eh? In the way folk have to live?’

‘Plenty of folk in tenements live like that all the time. They don’t have to be in a depression.’

‘My very point!’ Even in the poor light afforded by the street lamps, Lindy could see the excitement in Neil’s eyes. Next thing, she thought, he’ll be telling me about his writing, sure to be something just as good as
Love on the Dole
, poor laddie. But already she was returning to Ginger’s dress and Ginger’s shoes and her beautiful hair that looked blonde, not red, because of the black and white photography. One day, it was said, most of the films would be in colour, not just Walt Disney’s cartoons. Now, that would be something to look forward to!

‘What I’m planning to do is write about ordinary people, too, though mine’ll be Scots,’ Neil was continuing, pausing to look back to see if there was a tram on the horizon. ‘Won’t be a copy of Walter Greenwood’s book, of course, though that is a bestseller, but something on those lines. I mean, too many books today are written about middle-class folk by middle-class writers. And they don’t seem real, eh? Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I’m sure,’ Lindy murmured hastily. ‘Neil, I see the tram. Let’s get to the stop.’

On the tram, which they managed to catch, she thought she should talk of Neil’s writing, making the mistake of trying to be more down to earth than he himself could ever be, while he sat folding his ticket and frowning.

‘I mean, the nice thing is that you’ve got a good job anyway, Neil, haven’t you? Printing – that needs training and they’ll always want people like you who can do it, eh? So, you can do your writing in your spare time but you’ll still have your –’ She hesitated, and he looked at her coldly.

‘My what? My proper job? Is that what you were going to say? As though writing couldn’t be a proper job?’

‘I wasn’t saying that—’

‘Look, I know exactly what you were saying, Lindy. It’s what folk say all the time. So let’s close this conversation, eh?’

‘Oh, Neil, I never meant to upset you. I do think you’ll be a full-time writer one day, honestly, I do!’

‘OK, OK, let’s leave it. But one day, I promise you, I’m going to see my books set up in print by somebody who’s no’ me, because I’ll be the author and he’ll be the printer. And one day, you’re going to escape from Murchie’s Provisions and do what you want to do. We’re both going to fly away from what we’ve got now, that’s the thing to remember.’

‘Oh, I do,’ she said fervently. ‘I remember it all the time.’

Walking from the tram stop towards Scott Street, they linked arms again, relieved that their little skirmish had been settled and that they could end the evening on their usual cheerful note. That’s it for me, though, Lindy privately decided. No more giving advice to Neil, or even commenting on what he wanted to do. Strange though some thought their friendship to be, she valued it too much to risk losing it.

‘Here we are,’ said Neil, breaking their relaxed silence. ‘Dear old number nineteen on the horizon.’

‘You coming into our place for a minute?’ asked Lindy.

‘I don’t think so, thanks. Better get home.’

‘Struan won’t be there – he’ll still be with his pals.’

‘I don’t care whether he’s there or not.’ Neil pressed Lindy’s arm in his. ‘It’s your stepmother I don’t particularly want to see. Always looks at me as though I should be putting the ring on your finger.’

‘Och, no! She’d never be thinking that. She knows we’re just friends.’ Lindy tried to search Neil’s face, but couldn’t quite read his eyes. ‘That’s the whole point for us, eh? We aren’t ready for marriage?’

‘Exactly right. If we’re going places, we need to be free. I’ve seen too many fellows sink under the strain of having to keep a wife and family, all their old ideas thrown out, all their dreams dead.’

‘I know, I know! Folk rush into marriage, think it’s grand and then you see ’em and everything’s changed – there’s no money, there’s bairns to feed . . .’ Lindy paused. ‘And some don’t even get that far.’

‘You’re thinking of your mother?’ Neil asked softly. ‘That was a tragedy.’

‘Happens, Neil.’ She began to walk towards the door of number nineteen. ‘Come on, let’s get in before the pubs close. You know what it’s like then.’

‘Wait, I just want to be sure, before we go in, that you do like being with me, Lindy?’

‘Why, you know I do. We get on so well and you’re so patient. Look how you go to the films I like and take me dancing when you’re bored stiff with it!’

‘And you do feel that we have something special between us?’

’I do.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t know what it is, but it’s there.’

‘I’d say it was an affinity. Even if we have different interests, we’re happy together. We feel right, somehow. Isn’t that true?’

‘Oh, it is! It’s true.’

They gazed at each other with serious eyes until Lindy turned away.

Neil caught her arm. ‘You’ve forgotten something, Lindy.’

‘Oh, yes.’ She relaxed into laughter and raised her face to his. ‘The goodnight kiss.’

For some moments after their brief kiss, they remained close until they moved again – the special friends – and continued down the long, dark street to the door of number nineteen, where they let themselves in.

Though the days of that winter were milder than usual they were still long, still dreary. Surely this was the worst time of the whole year, thought Lindy, struggling to find something to cheer her, but could see no beam of light in the darkness – unless you counted the talk of King George’s Silver Jubilee, but that wasn’t to come until May.

Meanwhile, the papers were full of Hitler and Mussolini and the threat of conflict in Europe, as well as a farming catastrophe in America where land turned to dust and families were going hungry and, of course, the ever-deepening Depression at home. No let up there.

Much as she would have liked to move on, when she read the papers Lindy decided that she must put up with the job she’d got until the situation improved. At least there were wages every week and there was no talk of being laid off, like so many workers. Yes, all seemed well, until one March morning Myra announced she’d had a message from Mrs Fielding, the owner of Murchie’s Provisions. Seemingly, she was worried about the drop in the shop’s takings.

‘What’s new?’ asked Lindy, who was busy sorting out shelves. ‘Takings have been down since we got into the slump. No’ surprising, is it? Folk still like to come to the shop but they haven’t the money to spend like they did.’

‘Aye, but Mrs Fielding says there might have to be cutbacks.’

‘Cutbacks?’ Lindy was staring at her stepmother. ‘What cutbacks?’

‘Ssh, keep your voice down, there’s customers in the shop.’ Myra moved closer to Lindy. ‘What she means is I might have to manage on my own.’

‘Without me?’ Lindy’s voice was suddenly husky. ‘You mean she’d give me the sack?’

‘She said she’d wait to see how things go. I asked if maybe you could go part time—’

‘Wouldn’t want that. I couldn’t manage!’

‘Yes, well, she said no, anyway – it wouldn’t be enough of a saving. But no need to worry yet. She’s leaving things as they are for now.’

‘So I’ve just got this hanging over my head, have I?’ As she returned to her work, Lindy’s eyes were mutinous. ‘Looking forward to being on the dole?’

Myra turned away, tossing her head. ‘What about that young man of yours? Neil’s a nice fellow and he’s got a good, steady job, too. You could get wed.’

‘We have no plans to marry, Aunt Myra. And if we did, some married women still work. You, for instance.’

But Myra, stalking off to serve someone at the counter, made no reply, and Lindy was left to her thoughts. Better look in the evening paper, she decided, see if there were any jobs going, but she knew there were usually only domestic vacancies which she would definitely not consider. Besides, she hadn’t the experience to apply, even if she wanted to, so what was her future? A wry smile twisted her perfect mouth. Talk about
Love on the Dole
! She couldn’t face it. No, no, she wasn’t going to end up there. Something would come up – it would have to. She’d just have to bide her time and be patient.