Roses of Winter (57 page)

“Ah have a favor tae ask,” Ellen said. Would ye mind asking Mary tae dance a few times? It does'nae look like she’s having much luck. She had seen the resentful look sent her way by the girl and felt a twinge of sympathy along with the recognition of an opportunity. If Donald agreed to dance with her it would keep him within reach for a while.

I might as well
, Donald thought. “Ah don’t mind,” he told Ellen.

“Thanks,” Ellen said. “Just don’t let on ah put ye up tae it.”
 

Ellen let Donald and Mary have the next few dances together. She surveyed the men nearby. There had to be a likely candidate or two to keep Mary occupied on the dance floor for a while. Ellen didn’t want to lumber her protégé with anyone too awful. She spotted a nice looking young man heading her way. Pretending not to see him, she pushed back her chair as if intending to get up and blocked his path.

“Ah’m sorry,” Ellen said. “Ah didn’t see you.”

The man nodded politely.

“What a coincidence,” Ellen said. “You know mah friend was just talking about you.”

“About me?” the man asked. “Whit about me?”

“Just that she’s been hoping all night that you would ask her tae dance but ye haven’t paid the slightest attention to her.”

A skeptical expression appeared on the young man’s face. “Aye pull the other wan,” he said.

“It’s true,” Ellen said.

“So, why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“She’s that shy,” Ellen said. “Ah’m just trying tae gie her a shove in the right direction. So, will ye ask her?” Ellen persisted.

The youth looked at Mary on the dance floor and decided she wasn’t bad. “Aye, all right,” he said.

When Mary returned to her seat, Ellen wasted no time. “Ah think you have an admirer.”

“What do you mean?” Mary asked.

"That man over there has been watching you. Ah think he’s been getting up the courage tae ask you tae dance.”

“What man?” Mary asked, craning her neck around.

“Don’t be so obvious,” Ellen said. "The nice looking man over there by the door.” Ellen threw him a look as if to say
what are you waiting for?

Ellen made sure to have the final dance of the evening with Donald. “Ah really appreciate you being so nice to Mary,” Ellen said.

Donald shrugged.

“Ah like this hall,” Ellen said, placing her real opinion aside. “And the band isnae bad either. Ah wouldnae mind coming back here. Do they have dances every week?”

“Just about,” Donald replied.

“If ah came next week would ah find you here?” Ellen asked.

“Ah might be,” he said. “Why dae ye ask?”

“Ah’ve enjoyed your company and you’re a good dancer,” Ellen told him. “Wouldn’t you like tae see me again?”

Donald considered his reply.
She was bold
, he thought,
but not unappealing
. Apparently she was interested in him.
 
He found himself saying, “Ah think ah would.”
 

Donald pondered his acquiescence to Ellen’s invitation over the following week.
 
He hadn’t been particularly taken with her. She was physically attractive but too forward in her manner for his taste.
 
He had been enticed, he supposed, by her interest in him and her willingness to express it. Donald attracted the attention of many women but was oblivious until it was brought to his attention. Nora had not been the only one to fume in frustration at his obtuseness. May had succeeded by catching him off guard. Ellen had been more calculating.
 

The deliberating side of Donald’s mind masked, particularly from himself, the deeper need for attention that had prompted him to agree to see Ellen again. His naiveté left him ill prepared to assess the motivations of others. An oversensitivity to hurts and slights jostled with a longing for love and affection. This limited self-awareness left him vulnerable in multiple ways.
 

Ellen appeared radiant when Donald saw her again. She had attended to her appearance with particular care. Donald felt a wave of excitement flow through him.

“Ah was wondering if you would come,” she said.

“Ah said ah would, didn’t ah,” he replied. “Ah wouldnae just stand you up.”

Ellen laughed. His earnestness amused her. “Ah should have realized that,” she said.
 

Their relationship had its birth in the way that air abhors a vacuum. It filled a void in Donald’s life rather than provide a positive place for him to move into. He was like a sturdy log carried downstream on a strong current only to end up circling in an eddy from which there is no escape.
 

Ellen found herself passionately linked to the young man from their first meeting. Her attitude was immediately and intensely proprietary.
 
She had sensed Donald’s ambivalence and met it head on with determination and subterfuge.
 
Ellen’s understanding of his vulnerability became her chief weapon in her desire to make them a couple.
 

The longer days of May took them away from the dance halls and picture theatres. They wandered through the city’s parks and squares. The sun and space accompanied an emotional expansion between them, providing for Donald a romantic element that had been missing in the beginning. When they tired of the city they went to Dunoon or Rothesay. At other times they would take the tram to Rouken Glen or spend a Sunday afternoon in the Kelvingrove museum.
 

Ellen’s affection for Donald manifested itself in a more appealing demeanor that showed her at her best.
 
He found himself responding to her loving attentiveness. It was many weeks before he was made to reconsider an erstwhile forgotten dream.

“It sounds like you two are getting pretty serious,” Peter said one day over their dinner break. “Ah expect this means you’ve given up on your plan tae go tae America?”

The question took Donald unawares. Emotionally, he received it as if it were a physical blow. He had not thought of America since meeting Ellen. He had feared such a distraction but was stunned at how easily one had slipped under his guard.

“Ah hope ah haven’t said the wrong thing,” Peter said.

Donald shrugged. “It just went clean out o’ mah heid,” Donald said. “Ah cannae believe it, but it did.”

“It’s understandable,” Peter said. “A lassie like that could make a lot o’ men forget themselves. Ah mean nae offence,” he added.
 
“You could try asking her tae go with you,” Peter said.

“Ah suppose ah could,” Donald said.

“If you’re that serious about her,” Peter said.

Donald did not reply.

“You must be,” Peter said, “or you widnae look that bothered about it.”

Peter’s remark brought torment to Donald’s mind.
 
He had been so determined to leave Glasgow; he had been so aware of the headwind that ordinary existence could bring to thwart and blunt his ambition. The unlikely circumstance of meeting a woman who might serve the same purpose had never entered his mind. The emotional adjustment required had so fully occupied Donald’s mind that he had set all other considerations aside. Now he was faced with setting Ellen in the balance against his grand goal.
 

❅❅❅❅❅

The difference in Ellen soon become clear to Mary. She satisfied her mother’s curiosity without hesitation.

“Ah’ve met a man ah really like,” she confided to Mary a few days after meeting Donald.

“Ah thought something like that had happened,” Mary said. “He sounds like a nice lad,” Mary said after Ellen had finished her story.

“He is,” Ellen said. “Ah’m sure you’ll like him too.”

Mary’s pleasure in her daughter’s exuberant transformation was undermined by worry about the intensity of her feeling. Ellen had known the man such a short time but her manner suggested he was the love of her life. Mary wished she could meet the man, assess him at first hand. She was reluctant to suggest bringing him to the house. It was too soon. Mary didn’t want to scare him away. She would just have to wait and hope for the best.

❅❅❅❅❅

Donald’s frequent excursions from the house and more careful grooming could not escape Bessie’s attention. She said nothing to Donald beyond commenting that she was glad that he was getting out more. Bessie had little doubt that a woman was involved. She wondered about the significance of that in Donald’s life. Bessie had heard no mention of America from Donald in quite a while. She had avoided bringing up the subject, aware of her own interest in seeing the topic fade away. Would involvement with a local woman finally mean the end to that?

At first, Donald felt no need to discuss Ellen with his mother. He had not expected the relationship to last. Then, just as it seemed that a real romance might be developing, Peter’s question about America had thrown Donald into serious confusion. From childhood, he had possessed the type of mind that any intense emotion could easily disrupt. He would become trapped in a revolving internal discussion that bordered on obsession. Adolescence had changed the nature of these compulsive spasms of the consciousness but not blunted their impact. At such times Donald went through the moments of his life in an almost automatic mode, the bulk of his mind taken over by his anxiety. His emotional state resembled a gramophone record that continually skipped to the previous track. Eventually, his mind moved on from each oppressive state to await the next episode.

During Donald’s youth there had been no one to discuss his feelings with. The culture inhibited it. School had been a torment of cruel jokes and bullying. Nor did his parents have the emotional makeup that would encourage any such overture. There had been no outlet for a mind predisposed to locking anxiety away from the world.
 

Bessie found Donald in the kitchen early on a Saturday in June. A pleasant day extended welcoming arms through the window.
 
Donald was stirring porridge in a pot on the range. She sat down at the table and accepted a cup of tea from her son.

“I have to say, Donald, that your time in the merchant navy served you well. I know few men who are as self-sufficient as you are.”

Donald smiled at the truth of it. He liked to cook breakfast for the family and take his turn in the kitchen.

“You sew almost as well as I do,” Bessie continued.

“Ah had tae learn or do without,” Donald said. He was proficient at sewing on buttons and darning, a habit he continued on land.

“You know that I would be only too happy to do it for you,” Bessie said.
 

“Ah know, Ma. Ah’ve just gotten intae the habit of doing it.”
 

He placed a bowl of porridge before his mother. Beside it he set a smaller bowl with the cream he had carefully skimmed from that morning’s bottle of milk. He had long ago accepted as normal this remnant of delicacy from his mother’s past and now performed the small act of service as a matter of course. Donald joined his mother at the table.
 

There was more than the promise of porridge in the air that morning
, Bessie thought. She felt sure that there was something on her son’s mind, that perhaps he was steeling himself to broach a very personal topic. A flicker of anxiety passed though her body. Perhaps he had finally resolved to leave.

She pushed the thought away.
No, it was something else
, she thought, reverting to her original idea that it must be related to a woman. Bessie was certain that he had been seeing someone. Even one as private and reserved as Donald could not conceal the signs. Then anxiety returned and remained. Perhaps he had persuaded the girl to go with him. Bessie toyed with the porridge, her mind preoccupied with the possibility.
 

“Is there something wrong with it?” Donald asked. His question broke her reverie.

“Oh no Donald,” Bessie replied, rather too promptly to allay his concern. “I just have a few things on my mind. I sense that you do too,” she continued.

Donald did not respond immediately. Bessie let the moment expand, hoping to prompt her son.

“You’re right,” he conceded.
 
“I was thinking about bringing it up masel’. Ah’ve been going out wi’ a girl ah met at the dancing in Partick. Ah didnae say anything about it at first because ah didnae think it was goin’ tae come tae anything.”
 

“And now it has come to something?” Bessie asked.

“Well that’s just it,” Donald said. “Ah think so but ah don’t know if I’m sure. How do you decide?” he asked.
   

Bessie put care into her reply. “One way is to ask yourself how you would feel if you never saw her again.”

“Ah’ve been asking masel’ that same question,” Donald said. “
She
seems so certain. Ellen, ah mean. That’s her name. Right from the beginning, there didn’t seem tae be any doubt in her mind. She was so determined about it that ah never felt ah had the option tae make up mah own mind.”

A faint bell of warning sounded in Bessie’s mind. “Are you worried that the matter might end as it did with May?” Bessie asked.