In a Class of Their Own (22 page)

Tears welled up in Carrie’s eyes. “Sam …”

“Dinnae greet,” pleaded Sam. “Look, I’ve heated the water for a bath for ye. Ye can hae a soak in the big bath richt noo.” Turning his face from her and staring into the louping flames of the fire, he reiterated, “But
please
dinnae greet.”

“And Hannah left you a Radox bath cube,” Alice blurted out, pressing the cube under Carrie’s nose. “Smell it. It’s called Ashes of Roses.”

Carrie sniffed the bath cube and shook her head as the tears splashed down. “Ashes of Roses, is it?” she said half-hysterically. “Love roses, so I do.”

“Noo, look what ye’ve done, Alice. And I just didnae want her to greet. D’ye no realise – I can staun onythin’ but yin of ye greetin’.”

Alice went to leave, but Carrie grabbed her in a fierce embrace. “Don’t worry, Sam. I won’t cry any more and we’re not going to Granny’s funeral either cos …”

She was about to tell them about what had happened but Sam interrupted her. “Ye’re bloody richt we’re no,” he exploded. “They can go and find some ither puir beggers to insult.”

“Yeah, but we’ll all go later on in the afternoon and say our goodbyes then to Granny.” Carrie paused before going on softly, “You do know she’s not going to be buried with Granddad in Seafield? She’s going to the Catholic cemetery at Mount Vernon.” Carrie turned her gaze away from Sam, Alice and Paul. “Seems funny to me,” she remarked, “that Granddad and Granny never let religion separate them in life and now in death others have decided that they should lie miles apart.”

Sam, Paul and Alice all stood silent.

Two weeks later Carrie met Sam in Great Junction Street while she was out buying a bag of chips for her tea.

“Pictures busy, Carrie?” asked Sam.

“Aye. Just out for ten minutes. But here, where are you off to?”

“Seeing it’s Hogmanay, I’m on my wey to see Uncle Davy.”

Carrie almost let her chips fall. “He’s not there, Sam! Did you not know? Hannah and me went along this morning and Mary Brown told us he’d given the house up.”

“But why?”

Carrie kicked some rubbish lying at her feet and shrugged. “Seems he’s now staying with Ella.”

“Naw. He couldnae go and bide wi’ her. He’s a Proddie, like us.”

“Look, Sam. Don’t blame him. The poor soul just couldn’t live on his own and our Dad wouldn’t go and stay with him.”

“An’ whar’s my wee stool? The yin my Granny yased to save pennies in for me?”

“Forget the stool, Sam. In fact, forget everything that was ever in that house.”

“Why?”

“Because our dear loving Auntie Ella – took it all for Mark and Tony.”

“Ye saying oor Dad didnae even hae the guts to put up a fight for my wee stool – or for just yin wee reminder of our Gran for us?”

Carrie shook her head.

“What kind of blasted folk are they?”

“Good Christians,” answered his sister. “But, Sam, like Hannah said today, these wee keepsakes are only bric-a-brac. The one thing they can’t take from us, the most important thing, is that her blood runs through our veins.”

It was a cold February in 1952 and all the children were enjoying Rachel being at home. It suited them to come home to a warm, comforting fire and to find their tea on the table. Carrie, who was now going on eighteen and at five feet five the same height as Hannah, swore that whenever she turned into the street the “Ah! Bisto” aroma of Rachel’s mince, tatties and dough-boys would assail her nostrils. Instead of walking she would race along the street to relish the delicacy.

To be truthful, Rachel had also enjoyed the last two weeks. Not only had she managed to have things all redd up for the family coming home every day, but she was able to treat her neighbours to the wholesome smell of bleach and carbolic as she scoured every neuk and cranny in the house. Even the glory-hole, where a store of logs and coal was kept, along with dusters, brushes, indeed anything she wanted kept out of sight, got a right going-over. Her final task had been to whitewash the glory-hole, and now poor Sam was having to clean his football boots in the garden before tossing them in there.

Rachel’s only problem was that she was now out of a job. It had come as a great shock to her when Paddy Doyle had forced four weeks’ wages into her hands a fortnight ago. It turned out he’d heard that Edinburgh Corporation had condemned the pub and the surrounding flats on the Broad Pavement. They were to be demolished and replaced by a multi-storey block – a ten-floor skyscraper in the shape of a banana! When Rachel heard of the proposal she said with incredulity, “A skyscraper in the shape of a banana in Leith? How the hell will the bairns ken exactly whose jam piece it is when it comes winging down from they dizzy heights?”

What she really couldn’t understand, however, was why Paddy should have thrown in the towel so early? After all, the Corporation had condemned Admiralty Street over twenty years ago, and here they were in 1952 with some folk still awaiting the bulldozers. The other thing that puzzled Rachel was why Myles Dolan and Paddy, who had been mates for years, couldn’t have sorted something out between them? But whatever the problem was, she found herself out of a job.

That hadn’t bothered Rachel unduly because she assumed she had nothing else to do but find herself another job in a bar. However, smart as she always looked, it seemed that the customers, in all the establishments she applied to, liked their pints served by nubile, blonde twenty-year-olds. There was just no place for an experienced forty-four-year-old, even if she could make a thirty-five-year-old look ancient.

Mulling over her problem, Rachel reluctantly concluded that she should try for another week at least to get a decent job. And if nothing came up she would then – and only then – consider Grace’s proposal that she should apply to the Eastern General Hospital for a cleaner’s job.

Nevertheless, there were more than a few problems with that solution. First, she knew that once she did take a cleaning job there would be no chance of her climbing back up the ladder. Second, it was very easy to hold your head up when you were climbing up the ladder but hellish hard when you were falling off it. Last but not least, Hannah was now about to qualify as a Staff Nurse. She’d done so well, in fact, that she was the top nurse on her course and would have the pick of the jobs that were available. And as luck would have it, there was a vacancy for a Staff Nurse at the Eastern General, and if Hannah took that job Rachel couldn’t afford to let her down by being a cleaner in the same place. No. That certainly wouldn’t do!

Rachel sighed as she looked out of the window at the thickly falling snow, and she conceded that the other problem – the more pressing – was that she had to be earning; and earning more than in the past because Paul needed to be kept for another six years. Why, she wondered, had she allowed Hannah, Sam and Carrie to pressure her into letting him go to Leith Academy? All three had promised they’d chip in to give him the chance. Had they hell! Hannah spent her cash on deodorants, nylons and feeding the poor. All Carrie could be relied upon to do was to pay for Alice’s dancing lessons and bring home ice cream cones, fish suppers, bottles of red Kola – and once a Mars bar that she cut equally into six bits, making sure that she and Alice got the chocolate-coated ends. As for Sam – well, Sam could be relied upon – but at what price? It had never ceased to amaze her that Sam had never once been lifted by the police.

The snow continued to fall heavily. Rachel, deep in thought, was still gazing out of the scullery window when the front door opened and in stomped Alice.

“Oh, Mammy, what a pig-awful day.”

Wistfully, Rachel turned to look at her youngest daughter, who was now a willowy sparkling blue-eyed blonde, and tartly remarked, “Aye, so it is. But that doesn’t give you the right to forget to wipe your feet on the doormat before coming in here.” Rachel gave a backward jerk of her thumb. “So, my lady, if you don’t mind, get back out there and get it done.”

Alice grumbled loudly and stamped her feet on the mat, took off her Wellington boots and bounced back into the living room – but since the floor was wet from her first attempt to come into the house, her stocking soles skidded all the way along the highly polished linoleum before catapulting her into the scullery.

“Damn and blast!” she swore, picking herself up and rubbing her bruised backside. “Know something?”

“That you’d better watch your language?”

“No, that life was a lot less dangerous here when we had nowt. That polished lino is a death trap. Only last week poor old Granddad tripped over the fireside rug and banged his head on that new-tiled fireplace.”

Rachel calmly opened the bread bin and took out a well-fired loaf that she began to saw with a bread knife. “C’mon, Alice hen,” she coaxed, “I’ll make you some nice toast and tea.”

“Oh, great,” said Alice, drooling at the thought of the hot crusty toast dripping with fresh butter. Then she seemed to have second thoughts. “But, well, oh, maybe I should give it a bye.”

“What for?”

“Well, you know how Carrie got me that job modelling clothes for the Economic Warehouse tick-shop down in Constitution Street?” replied Alice, running her hands proudly over her nubile figure.

“Aye. Both of you are going.”

“Well, Carrie says they’ve chosen the stuff we’re going to wear – so we’d better not put on any weight till after the show.”

Rachel lifted the slice of bread she had been going to toast for Alice and she looked at it quizzically. “Right enough,” she agreed, “this one wee slice would turn you into a right two-ton Tess.”

Before Alice was about to say that maybe she could eat just one slice of toast a loud bang on the outside door silenced her.

“You answer that,” Rachel said, turning to heat the teapot.

At the door Alice was confronted by a big police sergeant, who bellowed, “This the Campbell’s’ hoose?”

Alice nodded.

“Your Mammy in?”

Gaping, Alice nodded again.

“I’d like a wee word wi’ her.”

Still dumbfounded, Alice nodded yet again while the sergeant pushed past and strode into the scullery.

“What the hell do
you
want?” Rachel snarled. In reality she was terrified at the thought that Sam, who’d been very lucky never to be caught and charged by the police, had at last landed in trouble.

“Just a wee word wi’ ye,” said the sergeant soothingly. “Just ye hae a wee seat.”

Rachel was about to comply meekly when the door opened again and in bounded Sam and Carrie.

“Mammy! Wud ye believe it that this daftie, oor Carrie, was oot there playing snowbaws with the wee Stoddarts?” bellowed Sam, giving his sister a dunt in the chest.

Rachel looked at Carrie, thinking, “Where have I gone wrong with this lassie? Surely at her age she should be behaving with some decorum. But no. Here she is, her coat covered in snow, her good woollen gloves sodden, her hair dripping wet and her high-heeled shoes squelching.” But before Rachel could tackle Carrie on why she wasn’t wearing Wellingtons, the sergeant went over and slapped Sam on the back.

“That was some gemme ye played on Seturday. Fower goals, eh? Ye should try and get yersel’ a job where ye can yaise yer footbaw skills.”

A deep sigh escaped Rachel and she rolled her eyes upwards before demanding witheringly, “Are you another idiot that’s come here to fill this laddie’s head with nonsense – or is there an official reason for you trespassing?”

“Oh, aye,” the sergeant nodded. ‘“Thanks for remindin’ us.”

Rachel braced herself. She’d never quite worked out how she would handle being told that Sam had been found selling nuts and bolts – most of which she was sure had fallen out of his and Carrie’s heads. However, when the sergeant motioned for her to sit down again she knew it was more serious than nuts and bolts.

“Ye are Rachel Campbell, nee Forbes?”

Alice, now standing protectively behind her mother, nodded and said, “Aye, she is.”

“So ye’d be the next-of-kin,” the sergeant said, taking out his notebook and flipping over the pages, “to yin Gabriel Forbes who bides at…”

Sam muttered under his breath. “The Winter Palace for the Destitute.”

The sergeant went on, reading from his notes. “… The Model Lodging Hoose in Parliament Square, Leith?”

“Aye,” replied Alice, nodding her agreement.

“Then I’m sorry to report that he’s noo …” The sergeant hesitated and adopted a suitably pious look. “… Is noo temporarily detained in Ward One at Leith Hospital.”

“Drunk and incapable again?” said Sam warily.

“Naw, son,” the sergeant replied. “This time it’s mair serious. He’s sober and he’s raving.”

“That’s serious. Very serious,” said Rachel quietly. “But we’ll have something to eat first and then Sam, Carrie and me’ll go down and see him.”

Rachel took a deep breath as she and the twins strode into the hospital. There was something very comforting and reassuring about the hygienic smell of carbolic, and so she made her way almost serenely up the corridor towards the wards. Ward One was at the far end of the corridor on the right-hand side, and when Rachel and the children arrived there a nurse barred their way – stating, as she looked at her watch, that the visiting hour wasn’t until seven o’clock.

“But we’re here to see Gabriel Forbes,” explained Rachel.

“Maybe so,” the nurse said primly, “but as he’s on the critical list only his immediate next-of-kin are permitted to see him.”

“That’s me,” Rachel replied, making to push past.

“Really?” said the nurse, but nevertheless directed them to a side ward where Gabby lay propped up on pillows.

Nurse left, quietly closing the door behind her. Carrie, Sam and Rachel all looked at each other in amazement. There was Gabby lying in a bed with the sheets and blankets so tightly tucked around him that he was unable to move. As Carrie well knew, it didn’t matter to Sister or Matron if your circulation was cut off and you were in danger of getting gangrene, just as long as the bed looked immaculately tidy.

Gabby lay there as they’d never seen him before – clean-shaven, dressed in a stiff white nightshirt and looking more emaciated than they had ever realised.