In a Class of Their Own (14 page)

“That’s richt. He left us, and my Mammy cannae earn enough money to keep us.” Sam, who was sure that things weren’t going his way, babbled on. “And we were near evicted for arrears last Easter. But we’ll be all richt noo cos Mammy’s oot o hospital.”

“Which hospital was she in?” the chairman asked.

“The Morningside yin.”

The men coughed and looked meaningfully at each other.

Sam realised he should have said that Rachel had been in the City Hospital with something respectable, like leprosy or the Black Death. People were always full of sympathy for somebody in the Royal Infirmary or the City Hospital, no matter what was actually wrong with them. But they thought that people who landed in a mental hospital were all bad. They were folk who couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, pull themselves together. Sam had lost count of how often he had taken a swipe at someone when they asked, “Is your mammy in the Loony Bin again?”

It was true Rachel suffered from terrible depressive bouts but she would never be mad, so far as Sam and his siblings were concerned. They knew that when she was well she was the best mother any family could have. Even when she had to go into hospital she’d warn them not to let anybody know they were all alone in the house. She’d coached them well in the art of survival.

“Have you anything else to say?” demanded the small mean man, who was tired of waiting for an answer. “I mean, is there anything further you wish to tell us to support your” – and he coughed – “blatant application?”

Sam, like Rachel, never gave in easily. He racked his brain for something else to say that would have him reach his goal of a holiday in Rothesay with Chalky. He looked down at his feet. “I gang wi’ milk and rolls,” he added brightly.

“Most commendable,” said the chairman with a smile.

Encouraged, Sam added, “And my shoes are aw holed,” he said, balancing on one foot and lifting the other so that the committee could see the holed sole and down-trodden heel. “I’ve to put cardboard soles in them every nicht, so I dae.”

All three men were still looking at him intently. He knew the chairman was waiting for him to say something more. Something that would swing the decision in Sam’s favour. He bit his lip and his eyes began to twinkle. Without uttering a word, he kicked off his right shoe, to expose a holed sock. “See, sir,” Sam beamed. “I’ve big tatties in my socks.”

The chairman nodded and smiled before turning to consult with his colleagues. Sam grew apprehensive when he noted that the mean little man’s face was starting to take on a look of triumph. He knew that meant that he was sure to be turned down. Deciding he had to do something very quickly, he blurted out, “And please, sir, there’s somethin’ else ye should ken.”

“And what’s that, son?” the chairman said encouragingly.

“Just that my ither socks, that my Mammy’s gonnae wash, hae big tatties in them an’ aw.”

The mean man immediately jumped up. “Just a minute, did I hear you say you have
two
pairs of socks?”

Sam nodded. “Aye, but baith pairs hae big tatties in the heels and the taes.”

A cruel smile of satisfaction lit up the mean man’s face as he sat down. The chairman shuffled his papers on the desk before saying, “I’m sorry, son, but as you have
two
pairs of socks we deem you not poor enough for a holiday.”

Sam looked up at him. “No puir enough?” he stammered as deep outrage flamed upwards from his belly to his head.

Without a further word, he turned on his heel and strode defiantly up the hall. But as he opened the big creaking outer door he turned and shouted back at the men, “No puir enough for a holiday, am I? Tell me this then. Hoo bluidy puir dae I hae tae be?”

Carrie awoke suddenly and listened intently. What time was it? For the past week, only sounds had given her any idea of whether it was morning or night. For seven days now she had been blindfold and kept in this bed. For seven days she’d only occasionally been allowed to move her arms and legs. The hardest thing for Carrie, however, was not being able to move her head. It had been kept immobile by two sandbag-like pillows on either side of her face. Food had been fed to her in liquid form through a straw.

In her imprisonment all she could do all was think. That day she was wondering if anybody understood how frightening it was to be blind, and her memory flew back to the day she had to go down to Leith Hospital after Hannah had caught Carrie’s thumb in the outside door. The doctor had terrified Carrie when he looked at her thumb and announced it would have to come off.

Carrie had screamed, “Mammy. Mammy! Come quick and save me.”

Rachel, who had stayed behind in the waiting room, at once bounded into the treatment room. “What’s going on?” she demanded, pulling the doctor away from Carrie.

“Oh Mammy, he’s going to cut my thumb off,” Carrie wailed before the doctor could speak.

“Surely you’re not?” shrieked Rachel in absolute horror.

The doctor had smiled. “No, no. All I’m going to do is this.” And he tore off the thumb-nail that was hanging by a shred. Once the nail was completely removed, he snapped his fingers. A nurse jumped to attention and gave him some swabs – two of which he used to stem the bleeding from Carrie’s thumb and the third to wipe away her gushing tears. “Dear, dear. What
have
we here?” he asked, taking Carrie’s chin in his hand and gently rocking her head from side to side.

“I try to keep her in glasses. I really do. But she’s forever getting them broken,” Rachel said defensively, taking Carrie’s glasses out of her pocket. The glasses, as usual, had pipe cleaners attached to them where the legs should have been.

“Not the spectacles,” the doctor remarked thoughtfully as he took the glasses from Rachel’s hand and placed them on Carrie’s face. “I mean her strabismus.”

“Strabisms? Strabisms? What the hell do you mean by strabisms?” Rachel almost shouted in sheer panic.

“No need to worry, Mrs Campbell. Strabismus is the medical term for a squint,” the doctor replied with a reassuring smile.

Carrie’s face had fired. She’d always hated that her eyes were so different from everybody else’s. Why, she wondered, did they always have to look in different directions from each other?

The doctor tut-tutted and swung reflectively from side to side in his chair. All the time he kept looking into Carrie’s eyes. “Tell you what,” he said at last to Rachel. “I’d like you to make an appointment to see a colleague of mine, Mr Luke. He’s an excellent ophthalmic surgeon. Could straighten these.” He hesitated before adding, “Those … er … squints.”

Rachel was amazed. “Are you saying, Doctor, that something could be done about Carrie’s eyes?”

“Yes indeed,” the doctor responded, patting Carrie’s cheek. “No sense in leaving such a pretty girl with such unattractive strabismus.”

Carrie’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the nurse asking, “Are you awake, Carrie?” Carrie nodded. “No, no. Don’t nod your head. You
must
keep it still. I’ll bring you a drink in a minute.”

Unthinkingly, Carrie nodded again, but quickly blurted out, “Sorry.”

The nurse patted her hand. “It’s all right. It’ll soon be Tuesday.”

“Tuesday,” Carrie sighed wistfully as the nurse left her side. Tuesday was to be that happy day when the bandages would be removed and she would have straight eyes. No more being called cock-eyed by the bullies in the playground. No more being afraid to meet someone new. No more being the ugly one. No! On Tuesday it would all be different and she just couldn’t wait to see it all happen. Tears began to choke her when she thought, “Maybe I’ll be very lucky and see properly again on Tuesday – but what about Sam?” Carrie’s thoughts raced back to the night before she had come into hospital.

Rachel had been washing the outside of the windows. It hadn’t seemed to matter that she had washed them the very day before. What
did
matter was that it had rained through the night, which meant the windows had lost a little of their pristine sparkle.

It was when Rachel had climbed the stepladder to wash the outside of the bathroom window that the trouble started. The top half of the window was of clear glass, not opaque like the bottom. And when Rachel peered into the bathroom through the clear glass she screamed. The ladder, the pail of water and herself had all crashed to the ground when she jerked backwards in shock.

Sam, who had been in the bathroom, made a dash for the outside door. Rachel had been quick to pick herself up though and, just as Sam tried to dash out of the entry, Rachel firmly barred his way. Without a word she slapped his face with the chamois leather and roughly hauled him into the house. Still without a word, she seized the carpet beater, that was conveniently at hand, and began laying into Sam.

Hannah, Carrie, Paul and Alice all looked on in consternation. Naturally their mother beat them from time to time when she said they were asking for it. But
never ever
had she thrashed any of them as she was beating Sam now.

“What’s he been up to?” asked Hannah, catching hold of Rachel’s raised hand as she was about to whack Sam yet again.

“I’ll tell you what the dirty wee bugger was doing!” Rachel yelled, rounding on the others. “Trying to make himself go blind, that’s what he was up to.”

“I wasnae,” Sam protested indignantly, rubbing his painful backside.

“Oh, my bonny lad, but you were,” Rachel insisted. “And any idiot knows that sort of thing will make you go blind.”

Carrie looked from Sam to her mother. She was completely confused. “Paul,” she whispered to her younger brother, “what on earth was Sam doing that was so awful?”

Paul shrugged his shoulders. “Dinnae ken. Aw he said tae me was that he was off to polish his conkers.”

“What did you just say, Paul?” Rachel demanded, grasping him by the collar.

“Nothin’, Mammy,” Paul stuttered as he tried to wriggle free. “Just told Carrie, I did, that Sam said he was goin’ to polish up his conkers.”

To Paul’s relief, his mother released him and turned on Sam again. “You like polishing up your conkers, do you?” she spat venomously in Sam’s face. “Well, let me tell you this, my lad: If
ever
I catch you at that again you’ll no need to wait to go blind because I’ll blind you myself.” With that, Rachel gave Sam another great whack across the backside. Turning away, she let the carpet beater slip from her hand, sank down on the easy chair and lapsed into deep thought.

There was complete silence for a minute. They all waited for Rachel to say or do something. Eventually she got up and strode into the empty bedroom. “Sam,” she called. “From tonight on you’ll sleep in here with Paul. You have never
ever
to sleep with the girls and me again. Is that perfectly clear?”

Sam nodded.

“But, Mam,” protested Hannah, who had followed her mother into the room. “There’s no bed in here. And we haven’t got a spare one to put in it.”

“And besides,” Carrie had butted in, “we’ve always slept three up and three down in the one bed.”

Rachel gave an exasperated grunt as she came back to the living room and faced Sam again. “That’s right. But from now on they’ll share a palliasse in that room till I find them a bed.”

As she lay on her hospital bed, Carrie had wondered how Sam and Paul were faring sleeping on their palliasse – until last night, when Hannah had visited and told her that Rachel had got the single bed she needed for Sam and Paul. She’d bought it, Hannah said, on the never-never.

Creeping footsteps near her bed alerted Carrie. “Who’s there?” she whispered.

A calloused hand took Carrie’s. She smiled, needing no answer. As soon as her fingers had gripped the hand she’d felt the deep gouges made by the knives that were used in the Roperie. “Granny,” sighed Carrie. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Ah, dearie, but ye cannae see me.” Rosie chuckled.

Then another voice spoke sneeringly. “Aye, and on Tuesday I’ll be proved richt and she’ll never see nae mair.”

Carrie bristled from head to toe. Auntie Ella, was with Granny – Auntie Ella, whom Carrie had vowed to hate for ever and ever after she found out that her Dad, Johnny, was now living in Ella’s house.

It was true enough that Auntie Ella had had a hard and sad life. All her three bairns had been still-born. And her man had died last year with TB. But, Carrie argued to herself, all that bad luck didn’t give Auntie Ella any right to be jealous of her Mammy just because she had five healthy bairns. So jealous indeed was Auntie Ella that when Carrie and Sam had been born she’d gone straight out and adopted identical twin boys. Nice enough bairns, Mark and Tony were. Even Rachel admitted that. But what really angered Rachel was that Ella wanted them to be Rosie’s favourites and her bairns to be pushed aside.

Even Carrie had noticed that when she visited Rosie, and Auntie Ella was there with her boys, Granny would pay more attention to Mark and Tony than she did to Sam and herself. Once, when Auntie Ella had left, Carrie had asked her Granny why she liked Mark and Tony more than herself or her brothers and sisters.

“Och, lassie, ma Ella’s had a hard row to caw,” Rosie answered. “And I’m pleased she’s adopted twa braw bairns that were needin’ a hame. But as to me lovin’ Mark and Tony mair than aw o ye?” Rosie laughed with scorn. “Naw. Naw, lassie! Ye’re ma ain flesh and blood. It’s agin nature for onybody to love ither folk mair than their ain blood line.”

Carrie now knew how true that was because each week Granny handed over a half-crown to Sam or herself to take to Rachel. She would say, “Noo, tak it to yer Mammy alang with this,” and she would produce bread or margarine, or even a tin of Spam. “But remember. Never a word to yer Auntie Ella.” Sam, of course, was indignant that Granny was, as he put it, shit-scared of Auntie Ella and was always wondering what Auntie Ella would say if she ever found out that Granny saved pennies for Sam in the little wooden stool that read, “Our Wee Boy is no fool. He keeps his pennies in the stool.”

The little stool that stood on the mantelpiece belonged to Granny’s youngest son, Davy. Uncle Davy wasn’t, and never would be, married, so he stayed with Granny. Sam and Carrie knew that it was his wages coming into the house that helped Granny to be so good to them. And Uncle Davy was always so pleased to see Hannah, Sam, Carrie, Paul and Alice. When he backed a winner he would often fill up the stool for Sam. Not only with pennies but with tanners too.