Crystal's Song (24 page)

A tearful Crystal blurted out in reply, “It’s on appro!”

The waiter – who hadn’t a clue as to what appro meant – thought it was probably the name of her insurance company and commented, “Now, aren’t you the lucky one!”

The remainder of the evening could well have been a disaster had everyone not been so very sympathetic to Crystal. And when Bing was called forward to be presented, not only with his certificate but also with a Jenner’s gift voucher for twenty pounds, Crystal felt so proud she didn’t care that the dress was ruined.

When eventually they were leaving, the doorman asked if he’d call them a taxi as the rain was now pouring down. Crystal looked at Bing before declining the offer. A walk in the rain they were used to, and as for the ball gown … well, a little bit of water might even help.

Unfortunately, cemetery staff were required to work to a duty rota. Accordingly, they had alternate weekends off. Bing, who happened to be weekend-on, had tried hard to get someone to swap shifts with him but none of the others had obliged. They were all quite miffed that he’d been selected Employee of the Year.

It was three o’clock in the morning when Crystal and Bing finally fell asleep. The story of what had happened to the dress and all the excitement of the dinner and ball had to be related to Granny Patsy before she herself could go to sleep on her makeshift bed on the settee. So when the alarm went off at seven-thirty, Bing felt like chucking the clock out of the window; but after some consideration, which included realising how it might look if the Employee of the Year hadn’t gone to work because of a hangover, he decided to get up.

As soon as he stepped out of the stair and into the street, he was surprised to find the pavements covered in thick white frost. “Brrr,” he shivered, pulling up his coat collar. Then, despite the hoar frost, he spied a bus coming and immediately decided that, rather than walk to work as he usually did, he would catch the bus.

Bing had just left when both Crystal and Granny Patsy sat down to their breakfast. “Granny, are you in a hurry to get home?” asked Crystal, through a mouthful of toast and marmalade. Patsy shook her head. “Good! Now do you think you could watch the boys while I run along to the store with the dress?”

“But I thought you said you were going to pay for it. Come on, Crystal, you don’t really expect them to take it back in the state it’s in?”

Crystal smiled. “Of course not. But I thought they might know where I could get it cleaned.”

“Have you gone mad, Crystal? You don’t clean things you’re going to bucket.”

“I know that, but I thought that if it would clean I might be able to sell it. Okay, it’s a long shot but I just might recoup something.”

* * *

As luck would have it, when Crystal arrived at the Co-op on the dot of nine, it was the buyer who was on the floor. Taking the dress out of the bag, Crystal took a deep breath before saying, “I got this dress out on appro …”

The woman seized the dress and her face grew red with rage. “This happens every week. But we’ve now got a scheme that’ll put an end to it,” she screamed, flinging the dress across the room. “From now on, evening dresses will only be allowed out on appro on a Monday and returned by Wednesday.” She snorted into Crystal’s face before adding, “And if they are not returned by six o’clock on Wednesday, then they’ll be deemed to have been sold. Is that quite clear?”

Crystal, who had tried to interrupt several times, now quietly said, “If you will just let me explain.”

“Explain!” bellowed the woman, who skipped over the floor to kick the dress. “What’s there to explain?”

“You’re quite right. I did take out the dress in the hope of wearing it to a ball last night. And it was my intention to return it to you on Monday saying it was not suitable.” Though the woman tried to interrupt again, Crystal silenced her with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But when the dress got saturated with wine, I decided to come in and pay for it. Here!” Crystal took out a five pound note and placed it on the counter. “What I really wanted to ask you was this: is there some way the dress might be cleaned?”

The woman sniffed contemptuously. “Our drycleaners can work miracles,” she went over and picked up the dress to inspect it again, “but they are quite unable to cope with the impossible.”

Crystal nodded. “Thank you so much for trying to help,” she said sweetly, hoping that the woman realised how negative she’d been. “And now,” she stated firmly, “if you’d give me my five bob change I’ll be on my way.”

She was about to leave the store when the woman came rushing after her with the dress. “You forgot your ball gown, madam.”

Crystal stared at the officious shop assistant before responding, “No. You please have it. I think with the mess it’s in it would suit you better!”

She’d just left the store and had begun to walk along Great Junction Street to do some shopping when she noticed a police van next to the store and two constables running into the shop. “Surely,” she thought, “she hasn’t sent the police after me!” Not being certain, Crystal broke into a run until she reached the top of the Kirkgate, where she went on to Bowman’s the pork butcher to buy some sausages.

Half an hour had passed before she finally turned into Jameson Place. Then her heart sank. That blooming police van was parked at the bottom of her stair. Her first instinct was to run away, but then she accepted that what she’d done might have been dishonest but, after all, she
had
paid for the dress.

She wasn’t at all surprised to find that the front door of her home was open. What did surprise her was that one of the constables was comforting her Granny who was weeping uncontrollably.

Immediately Crystal went over and pulled the policeman’s arms away from her grandmother. “Why are you upsetting an old woman about a bloody frock?”

“Oh, Crystal,” her Granny sobbed as she rose from the chair and made Crystal sit down. “They’re here to tell us that your Bing fell getting off the bus. He slipped on the icy pavement, and banged his head. He’s in Leith hospital. Fatal, they say it is. But he’s no deid yet. On a life-support thing!”

As Crystal sat by Bing’s hospital bed, she was aware that the distant voice speaking to her was that of her father. But what he was saying she didn’t hear and it wasn’t until he tapped her firmly on the shoulder that his voice became clear. “Crystal,” he urged, “the doctor is speaking to you.”

Crystal looked from her father towards the young registrar. “Why,” she wondered, “is he wringing his hands? And why does he look so concerned?”

“Mrs – er – Mrs Crosby,” he stammered, “your husband is now what we term … brain-dead.” Crystal looked at Bing who was still warm and obviously still alive. She turned her gaze back to the doctor who explained, “It’s only the machine that’s keeping him alive and it might be best to turn it off. Do we have your permission? Perhaps you’d like it left on until, let’s say – his family have come?”

She shook her head. “There’s only his mother but she’d be unable to cope here. I’ll break it to her next week.”

“In that case, Mrs Crosby …”

Crystal put up her hand. “Please leave us, Doctor. Just for a few minutes. That’s all I ask.”

After the doctor had left, Tom asked, “D’you want the boys to come and say goodbye to Bing?”

“No!” she cried out. “I think it’s best they remember him as he was last night,” she sobbed, laying her head on Bing’s chest and looking directly into his face, “Darling, you said you never wanted to be kept alive unnaturally. So will I say they can switch their machine off?” She closed her eyes and then sought her father’s hand. “Tell them to do it now.”

She waited with Tom until Bing was no longer with them and then they left the hospital together. “How do you tell kids of six and seven that their wonderful father has …?” She couldn’t continue and all Tom could do was to squeeze her hand.

The following Monday was even more difficult than the Saturday had been. By Monday, nature’s anaesthetics had begun to wear off. And now Crystal and Tom were up at the mortuary in the Cowgate. The attendant politely explained that it was necessary for formal identification to be carried out where a post-mortem was required.

Crystal and Tom had just completed the upsetting formalities and were out of the building when two police officers came bounding up the steps.

They were about to pass Crystal and Tom when one stopped and held out his hand to Tom. “Mr Glass,” Sam Campbell said, shaking Tom’s hand warmly. “What on earth brings you here, of all places?”

Crystal was so upset that at first she wasn’t even aware of Sam’s presence and all Tom could say was, “Crystal’s husband had a fatal accident on Saturday. We were just identifying him.”

Sam stepped back. “I’m so sorry, Crystal.” But as she was quite unheeding he turned instead to Tom. “You know, it’s said that this job hardens you,” and Sam’s open hand gestured towards Crystal, “but when you see someone you grew up with so shattered …”

Tom nodded and steered Crystal into the street and over to his parked car.

At first, Crystal was so completely dazed that she acceded to anything her father suggested. He immediately moved both her and the boys to Restalrig. Then he arranged Bing’s funeral for Friday, instead of the following Monday, believing it better to get such things over as quickly as possible for Crystal’s sake. He was aware that Friday would cause a problem for Joe, who had to be available for Fulham’s Saturday match. And even if Joe had sought permission to attend his brother-in-law’s funeral, it would have been denied. The only funeral he could attend, with or without Fulham’s permission, was his own!

Nonetheless, Joe turned up at the crematorium with just thirty minutes to spare. The family eagerly crowded round him, wanting to hear how he was faring and they showed their obvious disappointment when he said he’d have to rush off to catch the four o’clock London train.

Downhearted they may have been but they all trooped down to Waverley to wave him off before congregating at Tom’s for the customary boiled ham tea.

When only the family were left, Tess asked, “You meaning to put Crystal and the boys up here, Dad?”

Tom nodded.

“I’m quite happy to have the boys with me in my room,” said Archie, looking about him for signs of approval to this suggestion.

Crystal stood up and gestured to David and Alan that they should collect their things. “Thank you, Archie. That’s very kind of you. But I’m going home.”

“No. No,” Tom countermanded. “For you and the boys, home is with me now.”

Shaking her head, Crystal walked over and lifted her coat from the coat-stand. “Thank you, Dad. But no thanks. They’re my children and I’ll bring them up in our wee flat, pokey as you all think it is, and that’s an end to it.”

“But Crystal, are you forgetting that Bing wasn’t superannuated?” Rupert reminded her, “You’ll only have a widow’s pension. No private one. Life will be a struggle.”

“Rupert, my life has never been anything else but a bloody struggle. I have all the experience needed for this struggle – so the bairns and I are going home to our cosy wee flat in Jameson Place.”

Granny Patsy knew how determined Crystal could be but she thought she might change things by saying, “You’ll have to go out and work, hen.”

“I
do
work. I have my wee job as a dinner lady at Leith Academy Primary and on that – along with whatever else I may get – we’ll get by.”

Tom knew they were beaten but he went on regardless, while Crystal rolled her eyes up to look at the ceiling. “Andy and I were thinking,” he said, “you’re bright, Crystal. But you need educating. Night school is where you should start. Get a couple of O-grades.”

“Dad! Can we think about all that tomorrow – or next year – or preferably never,” Crystal snorted, unable to conceal her impatience. “Right now, I’m tired. My boys are tired. We want to go home. Are you going to drive us?”

Tom lifted his car keys from the sideboard.

The three mature students exited from Telford College at Crewe Road in the north of Edinburgh. Once outwith the college grounds, Sylvia asked, “Well, Crystal, how did you rate tonight’s taster class?”

“I like Modern Studies and I think Mr Durkin should manage to make the subject really interesting when we start in September.”

“So do I,” agreed Hilda. “And I particularly liked it when he told us to watch
Panorama
and
World In Action
because all we’d then need to do to pass our Highers was to buy
The Observer
on a Sunday.”

“Thank goodness for that,” remarked Sylvia, “because I checked it out, ladies, and all we need is two Highers, one preferably in English, and an O-grade in Maths. Then Moray House will accept us as trainee primary school teachers.”

“So next year at this time we could all be signing up for Moray House,” Hilda said gloatingly.

They’d now walked down to Ferry Road to catch a No.1 bus back to Leith when Crystal suddenly announced, “I don’t think I want to go in for this teaching lark. My Dad’s a teacher and he’s pushing me too hard to be one too. ‘You’ll need a career with a pension at the end of it,’ he keeps saying. What he really means is I was lucky to get one man so there’s no chance of me getting another, especially as I come with baggage – you know, my two sons – so I guess I’ll be working for the rest of my life!”

“Here’s you, Crystal, talking about getting another man,” quipped Hilda.

“I’m not looking. Honestly I’m not,” protested Crystal.

“Look! Just listen for a second. There’s a dance this weekend in aid of Salvesen’s Boys’ Club football team. So how about …?”

“Hilda! How about you stop trying to pair me off? That last dance you got me to go to was enough to put me off for life. I still get nightmares about it!”

“What happened?” asked Sylvia, indicating that their bus was approaching the roundabout and that they’d better make a run for it.

They were on the bus and trying to get their breath back when Crystal panted, “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. I went in there, a quiet wee soulless widow woman – the first time I’d really been out on my own since Bing – and suddenly every woman in the hall was hanging on to her man for fear I was about to devour him.”