Panting, she smiled wry under the lamp at the foul tale told of Duncairn crematorium—the foul story that had struck her as funny enough even hearing it after the burning of Robert…. Oh, mixed and queer soss that living was, dying, dying slowly a bit of yourself every year, dying long ago with that dim lad, Ewan, dying in the kirk of Segget the time your hand came red from Robert’s dead lips—and yet midmost the agonies of those little deaths thinking a foul tale flouting them funny!
Daft as well as decrepit, she told herself, but with a cool kindness, and looked over the Steps at the mirror hung where the stairs swung west, to show small loons the downward perils as they pelted blue hell on a morning to school. She saw a woman who was thirty-eight, looked less, she thought, thirty-five maybe in spite of those little ropes of grey that marred the loops of the coiled bronze hair, the crinkles about the sulky mouth and the eyes that were older than the face. Face thinner and straighter and stranger than once, as though it were shedding mask on mask down to one last reality—the skull, she supposed, that final reality. Funny she could stand here and face up to that, not feel sick, just faintly surprised! Once it had been dreadful and awful to think of—the horror of forgotten flesh taken from enduring bone, the masks and veils of life away, down to those grim essentials. Now it left her neither sick nor sorry, she found, watching a twinkle in sulky gold eyes above the smooth jut of the wide cheekbones. Not sad at all, just a silly bit joke of a middle-aged woman with idle thoughts in a pause on the Steps of Windmill Brae.
Below the quiet broke with the scrunch of a tram wheeling down from the lights of Royal Mile to the Saturday quietude of Gallowgate. Chris turned, looked, saw the shiver of sparks through the fog, syne the sailing brute swing topaz in sight, swaying and swearing, with aching feet as it ran for its depot in Alban Street. Its passage seemed to set fire to the fog, a little wind came and blew the mist-ash, and there was Grand Central smoking with trains. And now, through the thinning bouts of the fog, Chris could see the lighted clock of Thomson Tower shine sudden a mile or so away over the tumbled rigs of grey granite.
Nine o’clock.
She lowered the netbag and stretched her arms, saw herself wheel and stretch in the mirror, slim still, long curves, half-nice she half-thought. Her hands came down on the railing and held it, no need to hurry tonight for a change, Ma Cleghorn would have seen to supper for them all—the nine o’clock Gallop to the Guts as she called it. No need to hurry, if only this once in the peace of the ill-tasting fog off the Forthie, in the blessed desertion of the Windmill Steps so few folk used in Duncairn toun. Rest for a minute in the peace of the fog—or nearly at peace but for its foul smell.
Like the faint, ill odour of that silent place where they’d ta’en Robert’s body six months before—
She’d thought hardly at all what she would do after Robert’s funeral that so shocked Segget, she’d carried out all the instructions in the will and gone back with Ewan to the empty Manse, Ewan made her tea and looked after her, cool and efficient, only eighteen, though he acted more like twenty-eight—at odd minutes he acted eighty-two she told him as he brought her the tea in the afternoon stillness of the sitting-room.
He grinned the quick grin that was boy-like enough, and wandered the room a bit, tall and dark, unrestlessly, while she drank the tea. He hated tea himself, with a bairn-like liking for bairny things—milk and oatcakes would have contented Ewan from breakfast to dinner and some more for his supper. Ayont the windows in the waning of the afternoon Chris could see the frozen glister of night on the Grampians, swift and near-moving, Ewan’s shoulder and sleekèd dark head against it…. Then he turned from the window. Mother, I’ve got a job.
She’d been sunk in a little drowse of sheer ache, tiredness from the funeral and the day in Duncairn, she woke stupid at his speak and only half-hearing: A job?—who for?
He said Why, for little Ewan Tavendale all by his lone. But you’ll have to sign the papers first.
—But it’s daft, Ewan, you haven’t finished college yet, and then there’s the university!
He shook the sleekèd head: Not for me. I’m tired of college and I’m not going to live off you. And thought for a minute and added with calm sense, Especially as you haven’t much to live off.
So that was that and he fetched the papers, Chris sat and read the dreich things appalled, papers of apprenticeship for four years to the firm of Gowans and Gloag in Duncairn. Smelters and steel manufacturers—But, Ewan, you’d go daft in a job like that.
He said he’d try not to, awfully hard, especially as it was the best job he could come by—and I can come out in weekends and see you quite often. Duncairn’s only a twenty miles off.
—And where do you think I am going to bide?
He looked at her curiously with cool, remote eyes, black didn’t suit him, hair and skin over dark. Eh? Oh, here in Segget, aren’t you? You used to like it before Robert died.
Sense the way he would speak of Robert, not heartlessly, just with indifference, as much as to say what did it matter, would a godly snuffling help Robert now? But a queer curiosity moved Chris to ask Does anything ever matter to you at all, Ewan?
—Oh, lots. Where you’re going to stay, for one thing, when I’ve gone.
He’d slipped out of that well, Chris thought with a twinkle, sitting in the deep armchair on her heels, her head down bent, he ran his finger along the curve of her neck, coolly, with liking, as she looked up at last:
I’m coming to bide with you in Duncairn.
*
When they’d sold the furniture and paid off the debts there was barely a hundred and fifty pounds left, Segget took the matter through hand at the Arms, the news got about though both Chris and Ewan had been secret about it and never let on. But Segget would overhear what you said though you whispered the thing at the dead of night ten miles from a living soul in the hills. And it fair enjoyed itself at the news, God man! that was a right dight in the face for that sulky, stuck-up bitch at the Manse, her with her braw clothes and her proud-like ways, never greeting when her man died there in the pulpit, just as cool as though the childe were a load of swedes, not greeting even, or so ’twas said, when they burned the corp in there in Duncairn. And such a like funeral to give a minister, burning the man in a creamery!
And the Segget Provost, Hairy Hogg the sutor, said the thing was a judgment on the coarse brutes both, he never spoke ill of the dead, not him, but what had his forefather, the poet Burns, said?—
Ake Ogilvie the joiner was having a dram and he sneered real coarse: You and your Burns! The gawpus blethered a lot of stite afore they shovelled him into the earth and sent all the worms for a mile around as drunk as tinks at Paldy Fair. But I’m damned if he’d ever a tongue like yours. What ill did Robert Colquohoun ever do you —or his mistress either, I’d like to know, except to treat you as a human being?—B’God, they showed themselves soft enough there!
Alec the Provost’s son was in having a nip, he wanted to fight Ake Ogilvie for that, the coarse Bulgar of a joiner to curse that way at a poor old sod like the Provost his father. But the wife of the hotel-keeper was back of the bar, folk called her the Blaster and Blasphemer for short, she was awful against a bit curse now and then: and she nipped Alec short as a new-libbed calf. None of your cursings in here, she cried, I won’t have the Lord’s name taken in vain. Alec habbered he’d nothing against the Lord, it wasn’t Him he’d called a Bulgar, but the other one—and got in a soss, fairly upset at the Blaster’s glower. Folk thought her an interfering old runt, ay God! she’d find her custom go.
So the most in the bar took a taik to the door with their drams in their hands and sat on the steps and looked at the sky, evening in Spring, bonny the hills, the seven o’clock dirling down Segget High Brig, peesies out on the long flat field that went mounting up to the bend of the hills. You minded Colquohoun, how he’d haunt those hills, the temples of God the creature would call them, him that died in the pulpit preaching a sermon—fair heathen it was, ay, a
judgment of God. And now this slip of a wife of his had less than a two hundred pounds to her name, living up there in one room, folk said, all by her lone now that her loon, Εwan (ay, a son by her first bit man) had gone to work in Duncairn toun. It just showed you what happened to proud-like dirt, she’d intended the loon for an education and a braw-like life in a pulpit, maybe, nothing to do but habber and haver and glower over a collar on back to front: and instead he’d be just a common working chap.
Ake Ogilvie had new come out and heard that last speak of wee Peter Peat’s. Well, God, you’re common enough, he said, though it’s damn little work you ever manage. And then he went swaggering across the Square, past the statue of the War Memorial Angel, a trig-like lassie with a pair of fine hips, and spat at it, coarse-like, fair a tink Ake, aye sticking up for the working men, you were maybe a working man yourself but were hardly such a fool as stick up for the brutes.
Syne Feet the Policeman came dandering along, he was due to leave for a job in Duncairn, folk cried out Ay, Mr Leslie, fine night, respectful-like, for he’d fair got on. And he stuck his thumbs in his belt and said Ay, majestic-like, like a steer with the staggers, and squashed out his great feet and looked up at the Angel as though to speir where she’d mislaid her stays. Syne folk saw that he’d gotten his sergeant’s stripes, he’d come out to give the bit things an air; and he said he was off to Duncairn in a week, he’d been kind of put in charge of the toun, you learned, him and some other skilly childes, or at least in a bit that they called Footforthie where the factories were and a lot of tink workers, low brutes, for they hadn’t a meek to their name and lived off the Broo and Ramsay MacDonald, draining the country and Ramsay dry. But did that content them?—No, faith, it didn’t, they were aye on the riot about something or other, stirred up by those ill-ta’en Bulgars, the Socialists…. Feet said that he’d use a firm hand, by God you thought if he used his feet there wouldn’t be a Socialist left in Duncairn that didn’t look like an accident with a rhubarb tart. God, how the meikle- houghed sod could blow!
Folk ganted a bit and began to taik off, but halted at the hint of a tasty bit news, and cried No, man? and came tearing back. What’s that? God be here! and Feet swelled out his chest and started to tell his tale over again.
And the gist of the thing when you got to the bree was that Sergeant Sim Leslie had been in Duncairn, on business, like, that very forenoon—colloguing with the other heads of the Police and learning the work that he’d have to take on. Well, he’d finished the business and looked out for lodgings, awful expensive up in Duncairn and you needed a fine salary, same as he had. The second bit place that he keeked intil was a boarding-house on Windmill Brae, fell swell it looked, a braw bit house on the high hill that rises over Duncairn. But the terms were hardly as much as he’d feared, and he clinched for a room with the mistress o’t, a meikle bit woman, Cleghorn the name.
Well, they had a bit crack when he’d ta’en the room and she told to Feet, fair newsy-like, she’d had the place all decorated of late at an awful expense she couldn’t have afforded but that she had advertised for a partner with a bit of silver to lay down as deposit, and syne help as a maid attending the lodgers. Feet had said Ay? and Well, that’s right fine, not caring a damn one way or the other till she mentioned the new bit partner’s name.
But when he heard that Feet fairly sat up, as every soul did now in front of the Arms: Mrs Colquohoun? Where might she come from? And the Cleghorn body had said From Segget. Her man was a minister-creature there, though I’m damned if she looks it, a fleet trig woman that could muck a byre more ready any day than snuffle a psalm. At that poor Feet was took sore aback, he never could stick the proud bitch at the Manse; but he’d made a deposit for the lodgings already and couldn’t well ask for the silver back. So off he’d come home and got ready to pack—and faith, did you ever hear the like of that?
Afore night was out all Segget had heard, and half of the Mearns afore the next day, postmen ran for miles over parks with the news, old Hogg hammered four soles on the same pair of boots he was in such a fash to give the tale out. And when Mrs Colquohoun went down to the station, straight and cool, with her trig-like back, her hair coiled over each lug, fair daft, some thought it bonny, you were damned if you did—the half of Segget was keeking from its windows, and wondering about her, how she’d get on, what was she thinking, what was she wearing, had she had a bath on the previous night, did she ever think of a man to sleep with, how much did she measure around the hips, could she greet if she liked, what was her temper, how much of the hundred and fifty was left, was that loon of hers, Εwan, as dour as he looked, would he land in jail or would he get on?
At half-past five the clock would go birr! in the narrow long room you had ta’en for yourself, you’d wake with a start and find yourself sprawled in weariness right across the great bed, dark the guff of the early Spring, no cheep of birds here on Windmill Brae, clatter of the clock as it started again with a hoast and a rasp; and you’d reach for the thing and switch it off and lie still a minute, hands under your neck in the pad of your hair, fingers rough-seamed and scraping your skin. And you’d stretch out under the bedclothes, long, till your muscles all creaked, legs, hips and ribs, blessedly, you’d still a passable figure. Syne you’d throw off the blankets and get from the bed, the floorcloth cold as a Christian’s heart under the naked soles of your feet—off with your nightie and stretch again and look from the window at the coming of dawn, lacing its boots and grabbing its muffler and pelting across the roofs of Duncairn. In a hurry the same you’d wriggle in your vest, stockings and knickers, slip on your dress, getting warm already in spite of the floor and the frozen gleam of grey granite outside. And you’d open the door and go down the stairs, quick, and looping back your hair, to the cold prison walls of the kitchen, smelly, fling open the window, in rushed the air and a smell of cats you could cut with a knife. At first that smell had made you near sick, even Jock the house-cat, a clean beast enough, but you’d no time for such luxuries as sickness now-a-days, lighting the gas, the kitchen range, your hands swift on kettles and frying-pan, eyes on the clock and ears wide open for the first stir of life in the morning’s morgue.
At six you were up at Ma Cleghorn’s room with a cup of tea and a knock at her door and go in and draw back the window- curtains, let up the blinds, bang! She’d wake up and groan Is’t you, Chris lass? Losh, you spoil me, just, she meant the tea, and you’d say Oh, havers, she spoke Duncairn and you’d got the same gait. And Ma Cleghorn would give another bit groan and drink up the tea and loup from the bed, swack as you like, an old woman only a minute afore but filled now with tea and a fury to work. The Bulgars’ll soon be on the howl for their meat. Whatever made me take to the keeping of lodgings?
You’d say A BOARDING-HOUSE, please, Mrs Cleghorn, one of the jokes that the two of you shared, Ma’d give a great snifter through her meikle nose: Boarding? B’God, it’s leathering they want. And I haven’t a pair of bloomers to my name that’s not darned so a body can hardly sit down. I’ve a fair bit padding of my own to ease it, you haven’t, get out of the damn trade, lass, afore you’re like me and take to bloomers instead of them frilly things you wear—God be here, they’ll kill you yet dead with cold. Aren’t your legs froze?
You’d say Not them; fine legs, and Ma struggling into her blouse would say You’re no blate. Who told you they’re fine? And you’d say Oh, men, and she’d nod to that, great red face topped with greying hair like the face of a war-horse out of Isaiah (as you’d once thought, minding back through the months to Robert’s reading from the Bible in Segget).—Ay, no doubt they have, and enjoyed them fine. And would again if you gave them the chance.
Syne you’d to tear to the kitchen again, in time for the ring from Miss Murgatroyd’s room, dying for her tea the poor old wretch, solemn you’d carry it up to her room, the best in the house, three guineas a week. She’d quaver out of a lace nightcap: Is that you, Mrs Colquohoun? And you have my tea? Oh, that’s Such Fine, she was
awful genteel, poor spinster body with her pensions and potterings, not a soul in the world hers and respectable down to her shrivelled toes, wabbling hands and meek quiet eyes, Episcopalian, serving tea for the whist drives up at the Unionist Club…. And Ma Cleghorn, watching her taik down the street, would ask who in God’s name would be an old maid? She’d often used to think when her Jim was alive and would come back from the Fish Market stinking so bad that his shirts hung out on a washing day would bring the cats scraiching for miles around—she’d used often to think I wish I were single, trig on my own, not handled, not kenned, with nobody’s seed ever laid in me! But losh, when he died she had minded him sore, night on night and would fain have had him again though he smelt like a kipper mislaid in a drain when he’d cuddle you, feuch! They were sosses, were men, but you’d only to look at the Murgatroyd creature to make you mad to go tearing out and grab the first soss that you met in breeks—Half-past six, Chris; will you waken your Εwan?
He slept in one of the two rooms of the upper floor, the other empty, his window looked down on the glare of Footforthie at night that changed to a sick yellow furnace- glow, unstill, staining the sky on the morning’s edge. You’d wanted him to change to another room, and he’d asked you why and you’d told him he’d surely get sick of it—working down there all day and seeing it all night. But he’d shaken his shapely, sleekèd head, no fancies or flim-flams with Εwan at all: It’ll neither wake me nor send me to sleep. Only a light in the sky, you know, Chris.—So you’d turn the handle of his door and go in and meet the sting of the sea-wind there, the window wide open, the curtains flowing, Εwan dim in the light of the early dawn, lying so still, so still he slept that near every morning you’d be startled the same, feared that he lay there dead, so quiet, you’d shake his shoulder and see as you bent the blankets he’d thrust away from himself, pyjamas open wide to the waist, curling dark down on a boy’s breast. Strange to think that this was your Ewan, once yours and so close, so tiny, so small and weak, sexless, a baby, that had grown a body tall as your own, slimmer, stronger, secret and strange, blossom and fruit from that seed of yours…. In a queer pity you’d look and shake him awake: Ewan, time you were up!