Roses of Winter (14 page)

“Ah think you’ll like Glenn Miller,” Donald said. “He’s on the wireless aw the time ower there. This one’s called ‘In the Mood’.”
 

When Ella was ushered in to Bessie’s kitchen the following morning, she was greeted by the sounds of an orchestra. She sat down and looked at the record spinning on the turntable. “Where did ye get that?”

“Donald brought it back from America.”

Ella listened to the music for a while. “That’s lovely, Bessie.”

“Yes it is, isn’t it,” she replied. The record came to an end. In the silence, Ella’s curiosity finally overcame her reluctance to ask the question that everyone in the close wanted to know the answer to. “Bessie…?”

“Yes?”

“How did someone like yersel’ come tae be living in a close in Scotstoun?” She went on quickly, nervous that Bessie would get upset. “Ah mean, ye don’t talk like the folk here, and ye’re so…refined. Ah’ve jist always wondered why that is?” She stopped, her face turning scarlet. She had seen a look cross Bessie’s face and had interpreted it as anger. “Oh, Bessie, ah canny believe ah said that. It’s nane o’ mah business.”

“No, no it’s all right, Ella. I suppose it is natural to be curious.” She was silent for a moment. “You are right, of course, there is a story. But I doubt you would find it very interesting.”

“Ah find everything aboot you interesting,” Ella blurted out. She laughed nervously.

Bessie smiled, then composed her face.
 
Her eyes took on a far off gaze, as if she was looking for the right place in time to begin her story.

“We lived in Hyndland. My father owned a store on Byres Road, near the university. A men’s clothing store, it was. Not a large establishment, but selling only merchandise of the best quality. For many years he made a good living from it. There were holidays and piano lessons, nice clothes to wear; and plays and concerts.” Bessie stopped.

“Are ye sure ye want tae be talking aboot this, Bessie?” Ella asked.

Bessie dabbed her eyes. “Yes, yes, it’s all right. It just makes me think of my poor father and mother.”

Ella stirred in her chair. “Wid ye like me tae make some tea, Bessie?”

Bessie waved her offer aside. “No thank you, Ella, we’ll have some later. Oh, the concerts, Ella, I wish you could have heard them. Just the sheer beauty of the music! I would come home and try to play some of it on the piano.”

“You play the piano?” Ella asked.

“Oh yes, well not in years of course.”

“It sounds wonderful, Bessie, so different from here,” Ella said, a wistful tone in her voice, trying to imagine what it would be like to experience a life like that.

“It was, Ella, it was.”

Ella waited, balancing curiosity with her desire to protect her friend’s feelings.

Bessie shook her head sadly. “And then it all came to an end. Suddenly, it seemed, in just a few days and weeks of upset and turmoil. I had just celebrated my seventeenth birthday. I was supposed to go to college the next year to train to be a teacher. But it wasn’t to be.”
 
Bessie hesitated.

“Whit happened Bessie?” Ella prompted.
 

"My father’s business catered mainly to businessmen and the better off. When the last war began it helped many businesses but not his. He did his best to keep it going. I think my mother knew he was struggling but they kept it from me. When the business failed it came as a great shock. He lost everything he had worked to build up. It was a terrible time for him.”

“Aye, it wis the same here when the Depression hit,” Ella said. “We had hardly gotten over the war when we were intae mair misery.”

“Oh Ella, I shouldn’t go on about my troubles,” Bessie said. “I know there were others who were worse off.”

“Naw, Bessie,” Ella reassured her, “ah didnae mean it that way. Ah think ah understand what it was like for you. It’s broke the herts o’ a lot o’ people who worked in the yards aw their life. It wis a terrible time. Ye wid see men who took pride in their work standing idle on the street corners. A lot o’ them were never the same after. It broke up a lot o’ families.”
 

Ella thought of the desperate women who would buy goods from the shilling a week man so they had something to pawn.
 
“But whit did yer family dae?”

Bessie made a face. “There wasn’t much we could do. The shop had to go, of course. But I think the worst thing for my father was when he had to tell me that there was no way I could go to college.
 
Of course, I already knew that would be impossible. But to see him so defeated, his dreams for me and our family so destroyed, that broke my heart.”

Bessie covered her face with her handkerchief.

“I’m awfy sorry, Bessie, ah didnae mean tae stir up auld sorrows for ye,” Ella said. Without asking, she picked up the kettle, filled it with water and set it on the stove.

Bessie dried her eyes. “Yes, thank you Ella, I think some tea would be a very good idea.” The room fell silent except for the clink of the teaspoon as Ella stirred the tea in the pot.
 
They waited until it was brewed and sat again by the fire, cups in hand. Ella looked at Bessie. “Thank you Ella, this is very good tea.” She sighed and resumed her story. “Yes, it was terrible to see my father so broken in spirit. As you said, many men were never the same again, and it was certainly true of him.”

“What happened to him, Bessie?” Ella asked.
 

“He died within the year. His heart, they said. Well, I think he died of a broken heart. And then it was just mother and I. We were left to our own resources, and we had little enough of those. My mother had worked in an office before she was married; but that had been years before, and there were few of those jobs anyway, and none for someone her age. I was able to find work in the office at Yarrow’s, through an old friend of my father’s.
 
I know I was lucky to get it given our situation, but I hated the very idea of it. It was so upsetting, to have my hopes of being a teacher dashed so completely.”

“And that’s where you met Murdo?”

“Yes, that’s where I met Murdo. He came back to work in the shipyard after the war.
 
One day, he came into the office to sort out some problem or other and I couldn’t get rid of him after that.” Bessie smiled. “At first I wouldn’t give him the time of day. But he wouldn’t give up. He told me later that his workmates had advised him not to waste his time with that stuck up bitch in the office. And I was so determined that the shipyard was only to be a temporary stop, a necessary evil, until I found a way to get back to the life I wanted.” She stopped, drank some tea, and stared at the fire for several long moments. “But he was such a nice man, such a good man; so different from what I expected that I found myself falling for him despite myself.”

“Ah cannae imagine your Murdo making a pest o’ himsel’, he seems that quiet.”

Bessie smiled. “Most of the time he is, but looks can be deceiving you know. He can be a very determined man when he sees something he wants.”

“And he wanted you?”

“Yes,” Bessie conceded, “he wanted me. And in the end I wanted him.”

“Whit did yer mother have tae say about that?”

Bessie sighed. “She was very much against it. She said he wasn’t good enough for me, and many other hurtful things besides.”

“Because he worked in a shipyard?”

“That was part of it, I suppose. She still hoped, I think, that things would somehow turn out as she had planned. The way she saw it, if I married Murdo then that path would be closed to me. She was right about that, of course. And then I was the only one bringing money into the house. So there was the worry of what she would do if I left.”

Bessie paused and went to get some coal for the fire. Ella waited, impatient to hear the rest of her story, knowing that it needed to unfold at a pace that suited her friend. She watched Bessie fuss with the poker, stirring up some life in the fire, before carefully placing a few shiny lumps on top of the glowing coals. Bessie stared at the fire for a few moments until it appeared that the new coal would catch then sat down heavily in her chair. She looked at Ella. “I’m starting to feel the years weigh heavily on me.” Ella laughed.

“It’s no’ just you ye know. Ah can feel it every time ah climb the stairs wi’ a bag o’ messages. No’ that there’s that much in the bag these days.”
 

Bessie resumed her story. “It was a long time before Murdo and I were able to marry. Three long years - I know there are many who have had to wait longer. But they seemed so long in the living of them. I told Murdo I couldn’t just leave my mother in the lurch.
 
He said that he understood. It wasn’t the waiting, Ella, it was the way it all ended.”
 

Bessie turned her head away and dabbed her eyes. “My mother needed so much help in those years. At first it was financial support. How she resented having to rely on me to provide for her. Her anger quickly turned to resentment. You see, she had depended so much on my father and the life he was able to give her. She never could accept that it was over. It became more and more difficult to live with her. If that had been the extent of it, I might have been able to accept it,” Bessie continued. “But she began to behave so strangely. We didn’t know what to do.”
 

Ella had grown uncomfortable listening to the story unfold.
Why was hearing about other people’s tragedies so appealing
, she wondered? While feeling sympathy for Bessie she was also guiltily aware of her own prurient interest in her story.
It was the same impulse
, she supposed,
that makes it hard for people to pry their eyes away from an accident.
 

“Bessie, ah’m sorry for makin’ ye think o’ things that make ye unhappy. Ah don’t feel right about it.”
 

Bessie shook her head stubbornly. “We’ve come too far to stop now,” she said. “And you do want to hear the end of it don’t you?” Ella looked down at the floor. It was as though Bessie had read her thoughts. She looked up to see Bessie staring at her. Bessie raised an eyebrow as though to say,
I’m right aren’t I
.
 

“We tried to get her to talk with the minister but she refused. It was the same when we suggested the doctor. She insisted there was nothing wrong with her and made terrible accusations against me: I was trying to have her put her away, so I could marry Murdo and be done with her; I was trying to steal her belongings behind her back and sell them; the neighbors were talking about her behind her back. Well that part was probably true. It was only afterwards that I could see how bad things really were. At the time, having to live with her day after day, I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. I don’t know what I might have done in any case.

One day, I was asked to come in to Mr. Fairbairn’s office. When I saw the policeman standing there waiting for me, I knew right away what had happened. Do you know, the strange thing is that I remember feeling sorry for the policeman. He was that young he looked more like a boy dressed up as a policeman for a party than the real thing. The poor lad stammered so much that Mr. Fairbairn stopped him and told me himself. He couldn’t bring himself to tell me how she died. I found that out when I got home. But I think you have already surmised the rest, haven’t you?”

Ella nodded. “Ah think so Bessie. It happened wi’ a wumman on ma stair when ah wis in ma teens. Her man was called hame frae his work tae find a polisman talkin’ tae the neighbors and her deid on the floor.” She stopped and blushed. “Oh Bessie, ah’m awfy sorry, ah shouldnae hiv brought that up.”

But Bessie just waved it aside. “Oh, everyone pretended it was an accident. They couldn't bring themselves to say the word suicide to my face, though I’m sure they talked about it behind my back. The minister acted as though she had died of old age, although she wasn’t that old in years. Murdo and I waited a decent interval before we got married. All the proprieties were observed. But our marriage began under a dark cloud and it took a long time for it to fade away, if it has completely. Poor Murdo did everything he could to make me happy.”

“Ye shouldnae have any regrets aboot the past. Ye have a good man and two good sons.” Ella told her.

“I know, Ella. I’m not sorry to have shared my life with him. But in life there are always regrets. Some things cannot be locked away and forgotten about.”

On the following morning, Bessie saw Murdo off to work and settled by the fire with a cup of tea. Despite her promise to Ella that she would persuade Murdo to speak with Willie, she had not yet broached the subject with him. Bessie wished now that she had not been so assuring to her friend. Ella had not spoken of it again.

Bessie thought she had seen a hint of disappointment, even reproach in Ella’s eyes. She was determined to persevere on Ella’s behalf. Murdo could be a solid and persuasive influence when he wanted to, and might be Willie’s best chance for restoration. But her husband could just as readily be stubborn, if the mood took him. And she was well aware of the male reluctance to speak of feelings, let alone discuss them with another. It was a matter that would require delicate handling, if she were to have any chance of success.
 

There was no question that Donald’s homecoming had raised her husband’s spirits. The two men had spent the evening before playing the dance music from America. Murdo had come to bed whistling, in a good mood. Perhaps tonight she might find the right moment to raise the subject.