In a Class of Their Own (2 page)

“D’you not know that right now in Admiralty Street there’s me an’ my man; there’s a lassie of six; there’s my twins just turned four; a one-year-old bairn; an’ – as you can well see for yourself- another about to drop. An’ we’re all livin’ in a damp, bug-infested, verminous single-end wi’ but the one cold water tap?”

During this harangue, the councillor had twice attempted without success to interrupt. He raised his hand and opened his mouth but Rachel wasn’t finished.

“And the only convenience we have – if you can call it that – is a solitary lavvy on the downstairs half-landing. And that’s used by
five
families!”

By now all Councillor Smith could utter was a prolonged “Tut-tut; tut-tut; tut-tut-tut.”

“Aye, well may ye tut! The fact is that thirty of us have to use that one lavvy.”

“Thirty?”

“Aye,
thirty
!
So maybe you know now why I
have
to be re-housed in Learig Close.”

The councillor stared long and hard at Rachel, until she could stand the silence no longer. “Well, all right, it’s true. I
do
have delusions of grandeur, I suppose. Every day and every night I dream of flushing a lavatory. A lavatory, that is, for the sole use of my man, my bairns and myself. A lavatory where just maybe sometimes the seat gets cold.”

Councillor Smith went on staring at her until she began nervously to gnaw at her thumb. She desperately hoped he might appreciate (as Eugenie had) that she truly was a refined woman, a person of some intelligence and someone not to be lightly dismissed. As the deafening silence continued, Rachel could see that he was weakening. She began to take short, panting breaths. Surely, dear God, she thought, he must realise I’ve never felt at home in the slums. Knows just how much being re-housed in Learig Close means to me. And that I’ll go any lengths to get my way.

“Tell you what, Mrs Campbell,” he finally said, blowing out his lips. “I’ll go and see where you are on the list and whether I can do anything to help. Where’d you say that house was?”

“Number 16, Learig Close,” said Rachel with emphasis.

“Right. Now, off you go home because my enquiries may take some time.”

“No! That house is vacant and I mean to bide here till you give me an answer!”

The councillor nodded and turned on his heel. Rachel was pleased to see that he had a smile on his face. That seemed a good omen. She moved towards the outer door, only to have the receptionist call out: “That’ll be you going now, Mrs Campbell?”

“No, no, my dear,” said Rachel in her sweetest tones. “I’m only going to bring my bairns in out of the rain. Then I mean to bide here till I get the answer I want about the house at Learig Close!”

The following Saturday afternoon, Rachel was pleasantly surprised by the sun’s warmth. Was it, she wondered, a sign that summer would soon be coming? Or was it just the warm glow inside herself that she’d experienced ever since she’d picked up the keys for 16 Learig Close?

“Aw, Rachel! Hoo much further?” bleated her husband plaintively. “Twenty meenits we’ve been walkin’ an’ we’re only just across the Links.”

“So what, Johnny?” she answered, pushing Paul’s pram into Gladstone Place. Then she turned her attention to the twins. “You two bairns! Let go this pram right now! Restalrig Brae will be hard enough for me to get to the top of without havin’ to haul the pair of you as well.”

Then she silently contemplated the man at her side. Johnny was tall, dark-haired, grey-eyed and strongly built. She couldn’t remember how old he’d been when she first thought him handsome – maybe he’d been only seven when she’d considered him quite dishy. Rachel herself had been brought up by Johnny’s Auntie Anna, who always claimed that her darling nephew’s wife might not always have something to eat but she sure would always have something worth looking at. She smiled whimsically, thinking it might have been a lot better to have heeded Eugenie’s advice and not thrown herself away so lightly in return for a glad eyeful. Better maybe to have settled instead for a decent plateful.

Her speculations came to a sudden end as she tilted the pram to guide it over the kerb. Seized with agonising cramps in the pit of her stomach, Rachel’s whole body buckled in pain.

“Johnny! Oh, Johnny!” she gasped. “I’m no feelin’ great. Got a wee pain. Could you push this pram for me up the brae?”

“C’mon, Rachel! If ony pals o mine saw me pushin’ a pram they’d think me a richt Jessie.”

His wife looked down ruefully at her swollen belly and muttered caustically, “D’you no think you’ve proved you’re no Jessie?”

Johnny flushed deeply and shuffled his feet in embarrassment. “Look, I’ll pit yin hand on the pram and help ye push. Okay? It’s nae wonder ye’re wearied. It’s twenty-five meenits noo we’ve been hikin’ up here.”

Rachel didn’t answer. Her thoughts turned to Hannah, her first-born, who was lightly skipping up the brae in front of them. Bright wee thing, my Hannah, she mused. Just six year old she is but already you can see that some day she’ll go places. Oh aye,
she’ll
no need to beg for help pushing any pram up a brae. I’ll see to that, so I will. No, no! She’ll no make the mistakes I’ve made and land up grateful for someone standing by her.

“D’ye no hear me, Rachel? Twenty-six meenits noo an’ we’re only half-wey up this flamin’ brae. Ken somethin’? If I’d kent ye wanted me tae gang mountaineerin’, I’d hae took masel up Arthur Seat.”

Rachel laughed in spite of the pain. “Arthur Seat, Johnny? Come off it! You cannae even climb the Plague Mound in Leith Links without gettin’ dizzy.”

“Look, Rachel, what I’m tryin’ to get through to ye is this. Livin’ in Admiralty Street means I’m nae mair nor ten minutes frae my work at the Cold Store. This Learig Close’ll mean I’d be hoofin’ it for thirty-five minutes or mair!”

“Don’t be daft, Johnny. When you’re goin’ to work from the new house you’ll be stopping at the Cold Store, no goin’ on another ten minutes to Admiralty Street.”

“Ye’re splittin’ hairs, Rachel! An’ my sister Ella says only the King and Queen would dream o takin’ on a rent o nine bob a week.”

“Well that makes a change from her rantin’ on about your soul bein’ damned because you didnae get married in the Chapel,” Rachel said, before stopping to take a long breath.

“And in case you dinnae ken it,” Johnny went on, ignoring Rachel’s reminder of the price he’d paid for marrying a Protestant. “At fower bob a week we just manage tae get by – wi’ a few coppers left ower tae jingle in ma pooch. A man needs that when he’s wi’ the ither lads on the street corner. But bidin’ here, whit’ll I hae in ma pooch?”

“How about the loose screws from Ella’s stupid head?”

Johnny bridled at this slur on his sister. “See this? Oor Ella says ye aye think ye’re a cut above awbody else. She’s richt at that.”

“Compared to her, I am! Oh, look!” Rachel halted. “The Learig Pub. The Close is just round the corner.”

Only then did Rachel notice that Carrie and Sam had run ahead and were trying to climb the wall of the railway bridge to watch a train slowly rumble past.

“For the love of heaven, come down out o that!” she cried as they disappeared in a cloud of smoke from the engine. “That’s a coal train an’ if you fall in you’ll be smothered in dirt for weeks – nae to say landin’ in hospital.”

“Mammy,” Carrie spluttered and coughed as she reappeared out of the smoke. “See there. Up the road there’s a Chippie!”

“Where? Where?” squealed Sam in excitement. “Oh aye! I see’t. Can we no hae some chips, Mammy?”

“No, you can’t.”

“But I
dae
want some chips!”

“An’ I’ve told you – you can’t have any. Besides it doesn’t open till five.”

“A Chippie!” Johnny joined in. “Next thing, we’ll be findin’ there’s civilisation hereaboots.”

“Well, if you mean everything civilised folk need – the butcher, the grocer, the Co-op, the Post Office, the doctor and the midwife – then they’re all here.”

“Fair enough,” her husband responded grudgingly, “but that’s thirty-five meenits it’s taen tae get here.”

“Aye, but just you wait! Round the corner here, an’ – there we are! Learig Close!”

“Oh, ma God, Rachel! You’ve really flipped proper if ye think we could bide here an’ feel at hame. Which yin’s oors?” Johnny panted as he tried to keep his panic in check.

Rachel stopped and was silent for several minutes. The broad street basking in the spring sunshine seemed even lovelier than she’d remembered: pink and grey harled Corporation four-in-a-block housing with red-tiled roofs and daffodil-strewn gardens beckoning cheerfully to her. Tears came into her eyes as she breathed the sweet scent of lilac and new-mown grass. So different by far from Admiralty Street, where vile body odours met with the smells of stale cooking in dark, dank, narrow lobbies.

“The left-hand bottom one,” she whispered dreamily as she pointed to their new home. “All it needs is the grass cutting.”

“Grass cuttin’!” Where the hell d’ye think we’ll get the money for a pair o shears? Let alane a bluidy lawn-mower! “Look, let’s awa oot o here richt noo.”

“You want us to give up this house just because we’ve not got a lawn-mower?”

“Naw! Cos we’d nae feel at hame here. Aw snobs they’ll be across the wey there. They’ll no want tae ken us,” moaned Johnny, jerking a finger at the elegant stone-built villas facing them.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “But we won’t be living across the way. We’ll be staying
here
!”
She pushed open the gate and marched up the pathway. With a shake of his head Johnny slowly trailed behind while she fished the precious keys from her pocket and unlocked the door, which swung open to welcome them into a sun-drenched, two-windowed living-room that was half as big again as the one in Admiralty Street. She didn’t linger there though, because the scullery beyond seemed to invite Rachel to enter through its open door.

Johnny gaped. That scullery was near as big as their single-end living room. To his right stood a three-ringed gas cooker and beside it a large storage cupboard – a walk-in cupboard at that, complete with shelves. He turned to speak to Rachel but she was now standing by the sink and wash-tub. Both had hot and cold water taps which she immediately turned on full and gurgled rapturously in unison with the cascading water that ran bubbling into the drain.

“Hot and cauld water on tap, eh?” said Johnny.

“Aye, four taps. And see outbye there.”

Johnny crossed to look out at a manicured drying-green with its dancing lines of washing: shirts, blouses, towels and sheets, all flapping boisterously in the wind. His eyes strayed beyond the green to the spot where Sam was already playing happily with the wee lad from next door.

“Want a gemme?” Chalky had asked, lobbing a football to him.

“Aye,” said Sam. “Cos yin day I’m to be playin’ for the Herts.”

“Herts! Nae Herts for me,” his new friend retorted. “Naw. Naw, I’ll be goalie tae the Hi-bees.”

Without saying a word, Johnny sought Rachel’s hand and guided her back though the living-room, this time noticing the brightly polished brass canopy over the fireplace with its pipe-clayed hearth. Hesitating only for a moment, he drew her gently into the small hall that led towards the two bedrooms – but it was the adjacent bathroom that compelled his attention – a room without bed, table or chairs. Just a bath, a wash-hand basin and a lavatory. A lavvy they wouldn’t have to share with anyone else. His eyes strayed back to the bath: Johnny was thirty years old and had never taken a bath in a house. Until he married Rachel, he’d lived in a room and kitchen with his Mum, his Dad, his sister and his younger brother.

“I’m away oot for half an hour, Johnny,” his mother would say. “So ye get yer private bits washed at the sink. There’s enough hot water for ye in the kettle on the range.”

But when he had married, Rachel insisted he’d queue up at the public baths in Junction Place. Sixpence it cost if you allowed them to run the water but they never put in more than would just cover your legs. For ninepence though you could run your own bath – a luxury he’d never experienced. Johnny nodded his head silently. Rachel was right after all. Times were changing and the bairns deserved better than he’d had. Maybe too she was right about them going to a better school hereabouts. Or maybe Ella knew better when she’d said that Rachel was giving them delusions of grandeur.

“Heavens alive!” he thought to himself. “What if we cannae find the nine bob a week for the rent?” Terror-stricken, he hardly heard Rachel speaking to him.

“Well, Johnny, what d’you think?”

“It’s … it’s just great, it is. Absolutely … dandy in fact.”

Then, after a lengthy pause: “I was just wonderin’.” He needed more time to think; time to find a good reason to run away from the problem. Something that Rachel would accept gracefully. Then it came to him suddenly. “What if we hae tae gang tae war?”

“And what on earth would a war wi’ Hitler have to do wi’ us taking on this house?”

Johnny could only shake his head and stare blankly at her.

“Surely you’re not saying that if Chamberlain wakes up and finds he’s been hoodwinked an’ there’s a war on, then we cannae take this house?”

“What I’m sayin’ is …” Johnny hunted desperately for words. “… that even though I’m in an exempted job I wid still need to volunteer for some sort o Hame Guard duties or somethin’.”

“So?”

“Well, ye’d be up here all alane wi the fower bairns – five bairns I mean – ye wuidna be aside my Ma or Ella when the bombs stairted.”

There was silence for a moment as the words sank in. Rachel turned away to hide the triumphant expression on her face. Then Johnny put his head in his hands as enlightenment dawned.

Johnny had just turned the key in the lock and opened the door when he yelled, “Carrie! Sam! For heaven’s sake, pit a sock in it.”

“It no me, Dad. It’s him,” Carrie screeched as she swung another punch at Sam.

“Me? Never. She’s ayeways at it,” Sam retaliated, pushing Carrie over and on to the floor.

“I am
not,”
she said defiantly, kicking out at Sam.

“But ye
are,”
Sam retorted before chanting, “Fower eyes. Fower eyes. Just like mince pies.”