The Kellys of Kelvingrove (2 page)

He hadn’t discussed the house with Mae yet. The Ibrox tragedy and the attention to the families took obvious precedence over everything else. Mae was friendly with Eric Gilroy’s wife who was broken-hearted at losing Eric and so all Mae’s attention and most of her time went to her friend.

On his way home from one of the funerals, Jack had gone with one of his police officer friends to have another look at the house.

‘God, Charlie. I can hardly believe my luck with it being so near the Kelvingrove Art Galleries as well.’

‘Yeah, that’s a really beautiful building, isn’t it?’ Charlie said. ‘And look up there. You wouldn’t even need to walk all round the park to get there.’

Jack gazed across the narrow part of the Kelvin River to where, past a line of trees further on, there was a very rough, very steep slope. At the top was an area at the back of the Galleries where there was a car park and a large fountain.

He laughed. ‘If I felt nimble enough. But I can’t see me making a climb like that with my hip. Not to worry though, it won’t take long going round the park way to either the front or the back of the Galleries.’

‘It’s damnable that Eric won’t be here to see you move into your house, Jack. Or to come and have the slap up feeds you’ve promised us.’

‘I know. As somebody said, he died as he lived – a good police officer trying his best to help people. We’ll drink to his memory, Charlie.’

‘Yeah, definitely. He won’t be forgotten. Talking of drinks, how about us going round to the Art Galleries restaurant now and having a bite to eat and a drink.’

‘Good idea.’

They tried to keep cheerful as they walked but the aura of the funerals they had both been attending still clung around them. Once in the restaurant, however, they felt slightly better. The area they settled into was fronted with glass that looked out on to an interesting view of the outside of the Galleries. They tried their best to relax and shake off the memories that depressed them so much.

After a couple of drinks, Charlie said, ‘It’s not surprising we’re feeling so low, Jack. I mean, to be so closely involved in such a tragedy, and then all the funerals.’

‘And the tragedy of the families. I’m haunted by their obvious grief, Charlie. I confess I still see their faces in bed at night. It puts me off my sleep just thinking about them.’

‘Have you tried a stiff whisky before you go to bed?’

‘Good idea.’

‘That’s what helps me.’

‘You feel the same then?’

‘Of course I do. We all do. We’d be inhuman not to be seriously affected by it. Let’s order another whisky now and on your way home, you can buy a bottle and start taking that bedtime drink.’

‘Don’t worry. I will.’

Although he doubted if even downing the whole bottle would cure how bad he felt.

‘But darling, I don’t want to move,’ Mae Kelly said. ‘It’s so convenient for the shops and everything.’

Jack groaned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mae. It’s practically prehistoric. One room and kitchen and lavatory. Not even a bathroom. The house I’ve got the chance of has three bedrooms, a sitting room, a big dining room and a bathroom. And it’s in a beautiful situation. What could be better? At least come with me to see it.’

She certainly didn’t feel a hundred per cent happy about the move but where her handsome police officer husband went, she would go to. She adored the black-haired, cleft-chinned, dark-eyed Jack. She felt sorry for him too. He had been injured in the Ibrox disaster and was left with a painful limp. As a result, he worked permanent day shift behind the front desk of the local police station.

‘We’ve been very lucky to get the chance of this Waterside Way house, especially with it being rented. On my wages, we’d never have enough cash to buy any property, but with all our savings over the years, we can just afford to rent.’

Mae hesitated. ‘You could get a mortgage, Jack.’

‘Now, Mae, you know how I feel about owing money.’

She did indeed. Jack always insisted that he’d never owed a penny in his life and never would. She admired him enormously for his strong principles. There were few people who had any principles at all these days. They lived very frugally but as a result, they each were even able to keep a savings account going.

She loved so many things about Jack, including his love making. He was so sexually passionate. And Jack was always right. As a result, she went along with him to look at the Waterside Way house. It was the first house in a row of seven houses, all joined together, each with a garage attached. There was a sitting room and a dining room and a kitchen downstairs and upstairs was a bathroom and three bedrooms. At the end of Waterside Way there was a path with a small wooden footbridge over a narrow part of the River Kelvin. At the other side of the river was a line of trees and a rough, steep slope stretching up beyond the trees. Eventually, in the distance, the back of the imposing Kelvingrove Art Galleries could be seen.

‘What do you think?’ Jack asked.

‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ Mae said.

‘You’d better have a look out the back.’

There was a muddy slope at the back of the houses, then the slope reached down to the quiet Museum Road. Beyond was park land and then the University of Glasgow and the Hunterian Museum.

‘Actually, it’s got the best of both worlds,’ Jack said. ‘Like being in the country, yet near to town. So we’ll take it. OK?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Her heart warmed with love towards Jack. Trust him to get something wonderful like this. Probably he’d asked all the police officers on the beat to keep an eye open for somewhere nice. Anyway, now that she’d seen the place, she was happy and looking forward to the move. She could hardly wait. It was then, unexpectedly, that the trouble started.

Jack had said he was looking forward to sleeping in a ‘proper bed’. Not a hole-in-the-wall bed, as the one in the tenement flat was called. So was she, but it hadn’t occurred to her what a ‘proper bed’ would cost. Then there was the paint and wallpaper needed. Not to mention new carpets and furniture for the extra bedrooms. It obviously hadn’t occurred to Jack either. And she hadn’t the heart to worry him. She even got into the habit of quoting prices less than what she paid.

He said she couldn’t hang up her rusty-looking utensils in their lovely, newly-painted kitchen and so she’d even had to buy new kitchen equipment. In no time, their small savings account was empty and she had to order all the big stuff like furniture and carpets from a wholesale warehouse. She imagined that in the two or three months that the warehouse might take to send in their account, she would have saved up enough again to cover it.

Jack loved the new house and was so proud of it.

But then the warehouse account came in and she nearly died of shock. She had never been faced with such a huge bill in her life. She felt so dazed by it that she could hardly pay any attention to a very posh neighbour, a Mrs Charlotte Arlington-Jones from house number five – a tall woman with a long nose. She had come to tell her of the ‘ghastly neighbours in number three and four’ and how they should all get together and complain to the authorities until the ‘ghastly creatures’ were removed. Apparently number three housed the Shafaatullas, a Pakistani Muslim family. Two gay men lived in number four.

Letters about the warehouse bill began arriving, threatening court proceedings and all sorts of awful things if the account was not paid immediately. Mae became distraught. She wandered about in a daze. She didn’t know how she managed to carry on with her normal housework. She even attended a meeting organised by Mrs Arlington-Jones from house number five. Others at the meeting were Mrs Jean Gardner from number six – another posh lady but with a kind face and gentle voice. She was immaculately turned out with dark hair piled on top of her head and face carefully made up and long artificial nails painted deep red. There was also Doris McIvor and her mother from house number two, Mae’s next door neighbour. Elderly Mrs McIvor was obviously suffering from serious dementia. The man from number seven was a tall skeleton of man with wild-looking eyes. He was called the Reverend Denby and was a retired minister from the Highlands.

The meeting took place in Mrs Arlington-Jones’s sitting room – a curious group of neighbours chatting in a desultory manner while Mrs Arlington-Jones bustled about.

‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve called this meeting to complain about the new tenants in our exclusive little enclave here. I believe that it will lower the tone of the place with that large family of Asian people moving in here. I shudder to think how many of them there are. And I dread to think what they’ll be getting up to. Everyone knows they have ghastly bad taste. They are likely to paint the outside of that house a bright pink or purple or something – and as for that awful smell of curry! Well, what more can I say?’

She sat back and folded her arms, waiting for a response from the others. Quite a lively debate ensued.

Mae Kelly and Doris McIvor worriedly said, ‘Now, we don’t really know that they’ll be in any way offensive, do we?’

Mrs Jean Gardner said gently, ‘They come from the Gorbals, dear, and we all know what a rough place that is. I wish them no harm, of course, but I do believe they won’t be happy here, being so out of place. It’s just not right for them.’

The Reverend Denby called things to order rather tetchily.

‘But what about the poofs? Surely someone else noticed them.’

‘I think you’ll find their house immaculate and if I may say so, in rather good taste,’ Mrs Gardner said in her quiet, gentle tone. ‘They are both teachers, you know. And artists. Mr Clive Westley is an art teacher in a private school.’

‘They are wicked, dirty poofs. They get up to disgusting perversions behind their closed door. They are worse than those non-believers you’re on about.’

After more arguing and deliberation, it was decided that they should protest discreetly about all of the new tenants.

Doris gave in because her mother was beginning to misbehave and repeat everything endlessly to everyone’s annoyance.

Mae’s mind was so desperately worried about her own business that she just agreed for peace. She even agreed to Mrs Gardner’s suggestion that she should ask Jack to write a letter to the Council because, being a police officer, his letter would be taken notice of more than a letter from any of the other tenants.

The meeting closed on that ‘satisfactory note’. She kept her promise and said to Jack, ‘There’s been a meeting and the woman in number five wants you to write a letter to the Council asking them to get rid of the Pakistanis in number three and the two gay men in number four. Mrs Arlington-Jones says, and I quote her, “They are totally unsuitable and unacceptable.”’

Jack flicked her an impatient glance from over the top of his newspaper.

‘Tell them to go to hell. The Pakistanis and the gay blokes haven’t broken any laws.’

She tried to keep an active mind, filling it with garbled prayers about somehow being able to pay the warehouse bill. She tried to keep her body active as well. She scrubbed floors all over the house, over and over again, as if by keeping so wildly and frantically active, she could scrub her terror away.

Then, as if by some miracle, her prayers were answered. As she madly thrashed about with a scrubbing brush in the hall cupboard, a splinter of wood shot up under her fingernail, driven by her frantic scrubbing. Eyes watering with the pain, she furiously battered at the split wood on the floor to relieve her anger and pain. It was then she noticed she had loosened one of the floorboards. She thought she caught a glimpse of something coloured through the crack. After sucking her finger free of its hurt, she gingerly lifted the loose board.

She would never forget her astonishment at what she saw underneath. There were several neat bundles of used £5 notes. Hysterical gasps of joy careered around the cupboard in which she was kneeling. God had answered her prayers after all. She snatched the piles of notes and stuffed them into her apron pockets. She got up and gave a wild dance of delight.

Then gradually, caution crept over her. She mustn’t tell Jack, or anyone else, about her find. Not yet. Not until she’d paid her warehouse bill and then saved up and conscientiously put back every penny she’d taken. Then she could tell Jack, as if she’d just newly discovered the money. The police could then make the necessary enquiries as to how it got there and who it had originally belonged to.

Probably it was the previous tenant of the house who had died, some old miser perhaps, or an eccentric who didn’t trust banks. She’d heard of people like that.

Replacing the board, she struggled to her feet. She would pay the warehouse bill immediately. Her terrible problem was solved, that was the main thing. She felt joyously, hysterically relieved and happy.

And yet … Not only caution but a strange uneasiness darted about like mice in the darkest corners of her mind.

With a hasty, furtive gesture, she shut the cupboard door. And as she did so, her hand trembled. Somehow she felt she had far more reason to be afraid now than she ever had before.

Mrs Jean Gardner from number six had begun to visit Doris and Mrs McIvor at number two nearly every day. She spoke gently to Doris, telling her not to worry. She’d help her get to the root of the problem and everything would be all right.

‘Do you think, dear, you could have done something?’ she asked with a worried expression. ‘You might have, quite unintentionally of course, done something to the poor helpless old lady to have caused her to withdraw from the world. Probably she imagines she’d doing it for her own safety, dear.’ Mrs Gardner added, ‘Do you think she’s even afraid of you?’

‘Oh no,’ Doris protested. ‘There could be no need for her to feel afraid of me. I’d never do her any harm. She knows that. I’ve always been as kind as I could to her.’

Mrs Gardner placed a soft white hand on Doris’s knee, her long scarlet nails shimmering in the light from the standard lamp.

‘Now, my dear.’ Her voice was so gentle, it was almost a whisper. ‘Look into your heart and remember I care about you and am trying to help you in any way I can. But try to search in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Ask yourself if you’ve ever been impatient or angry with the poor helpless old lady. Have you never been tempted to lash out at her?’