A Scots Quair

  Chris had heard this before and now hardly smiled, if it was gentry to know her own mind, the things that she liked and the things that she didn’t, well then, she was gentry down to the core. And Ma had been watching her and cried out Hoots, now don’t go away and take offence. I’m just a coarse old wife and must have my bit joke. Chris laughed, half-angry, Well, don’t have it on me, and Ma said she’d mind and went on with her counting, Miss Lyon’s Boss had fined her two shillings, Awful the way that they treat Us Girls, the Clearmont laddie was all a-blither and a-clatter over his Rectorial election, fegs, what was this Nationalist stite that had got him?

  Chris minded back to her days in Segget and said that this Nationalism was just another plan of the Tories to do down the common folk. Only this time ’twas to be done in kilts and hose, with bagpipes playing and a blether about Wallace, the English to be chased across the Border and the Scots to live on brose and baps. Ma said Fegs now, and are we so, then? Then I’m for the English. Eighteen, nine and six, the lot for this week and we’re doing fine. Did I ever tell you when I wanted a partner my niece Izey Urquhart wanted to come in?

  Chris said she didn’t know Ma had a niece, Ma nodded, worse luck, a thrawn wee skunk that lived away down in Kirrieben. Ma couldn’t stick the creature at all but she was her only living relation and kenned that when Ma pushed off at last she’d get what bittie of silver there was. That might be so, but Ma had made up her mind she wasn’t to have the long-nosed sniftering wretch skeetering around while she was alive; and maybe when Ma died holy Izey would find a bit of a sore surprise to meet—I’m fond of you, lass, and I’m sending next week for my lawyer man to alter the will. What’s in the house and all things I have would be better in your bit keeping, I think, than as miser’s savings in Kirrieben.

  Chris said sensibly that Ma shouldn’t be silly, it was likely that she would outlive them all. And Ma said she hoped to God that she wouldn’t, if there was anything that cumbered the earth it was some old runkle of a woman body living on with no man to tend and no bairns, a woman stopped living when she stopped having bairns. And Chris laughed at that and said What about men? and Ma said Och, damn’t, they never live at all. They’re just a squeeze and a cuddle we need to keep our lives going, they’re nothing themselves.

  And Chris went out in the Sunday quiet to the little patch of garden behind and worked there tending the beds of flowers she’d put in early in blinks of the Spring, sooty and loamy and soft the ground, clouds were flying high in the lift beyond the tilting roofs of Duncairn, the hedge by the house next door was a-rustle, soft green, with its budding beech, far off through the hedges some eident body was at work with a lawn-mower, clinkle-clankle, a bairn was wailing in a bairn’s unease as Chris dug and raked, watered the flowers, pale things hers compared with Segget’s. And somehow Ma’s daft words bade in her mind, those about a woman having finished with things when she finished having bairns, just an empty drum, an old fruit squeezed and rotting away, useless, unkenned, unstirred by the agonies of bearing a bairn, heeding it, feeding it, watching it grow—was she now no more than that herself?—a woman on the verge of middle age content to trauchle the hours in a kitchen and come out and potter with weeds and flowers, all the passion of living put by long ago, wonder and terror and the tang of long kisses, embracing knee to knee, the blood in a stream of fire through the heart, the beat and drum of that tide of life that once poured so swift in those moments unheard—never to be heard again, grown old.

  And, kneeling, she stared in woe at the fork in her hand, at the prickly roses that leaned their pale, quiet faces down from the fence: well, was she to greet about that? She had had her time, and now it was ended, she’d to follow the road that others took, into long wrinkles and greying hair and sourness and seats by the chimney-corner and a drowsy mumble as she heard the rain going by on its business in a closing dark. Finished: when her heart could still move to that singing, when at night in her bed she would turn in unease, wakeful, sweet as she knew herself, men had liked her well long ago, still the same body and still the same skin, that dimple still holding its secret place—Och, Ma would say that she wanted a man, that was all about it, as blunt and coarse as a farmer childe that watched his cattle in the heats of a Spring.

  But there was more to it than that, some never knew it, but real enough, an antrin magic that bound you in one with the mind, not only the body of a man, with his dreams and desires, his loves, even hates—hate of Ewan, a wild boy’s hate, passionless coldness of Robert in shadow, they’d given you hate with their love often enough, tears with such white tenderness as even now you might not unfold in memory,— here, at this moment, kneeling here, still, the August sun on your hair, dreaming and dreaming because Ma Cleghorn had blithered on the curse of a woman growing old, because you had heard a baby nearby wailing soft in a baby’s unease!

  And, suddenly remorseful at her terrible sweirty, she bent and dug and smoothed out the earth, raked it again to a loamy smoothness around the wide feet of the Michaelmas daisies, they looked a bit like Sim Leslie the bobby. Babies? (said her mind, though she tried to still it)—hadn’t she had Ewan, perfect enough, grown up though he was, distant and cool? And wasn’t he fine enough to have made with a little help from his father long syne? And she minded that other baby who had died in the days of the General Strike, he came over-soon that night she ran to warn the strikers who were out by the railway to blow up Segget High Brig. Oh, long since she’d minded that baby at all, the baby Michael, she’d never seen him, he’d died within an hour of his birth, killing something in Robert as he died, killing the last of the quean in herself she had thought through the long drowse of years in Segget, my bairn, the lost baby who might have been mine—

  She heard light footsteps hesitating on the path and shook the mist from her eyes a minute before she looked up to see who it was, Ellen Johns, slim, sweet in a summer frock, a blue cloud her hair in the August day, soft dark down on her lip, blue eyes like pansies, dark and wet, looking at Chris queer, half-poised like a bird to turn about and fly off.

  I’m sorry, Mrs Colquohoun, I didn’t know—

  Chris said That I was weeping a bit? Old women often have a weep, you know. Coming to help, or only to watch?

  Ellen said I’ll help and squatted on long, pointed shoe- heels and began to weed with long, pointed fingers—I was sick of sitting indoors and reading.

  Chris minded the book that Ma had seen and looked at her with a little smile: You were reading something about Birth Control?

  And she didn’t blush and didn’t look up, just went on with the weeding, quick and calm, intent, and nodded: Yes. I suppose I’ll need it some time. Can’t find out much and it sounds a mess, but it’s a thing that’s got to be learnt. Don’t you think so? and Chris nearly laughed, but didn’t, Yes, I think it has. But you’ll want a baby sometime?

  Ellen shook her head and said she didn’t suppose so. There were thousands of unwanted babies already and most of them should never have been born…. Can I have the fork to have a go at those weeds?

  Thank Creeping Jay for the change at last, the six of you turfed out of Furnaces, three to Stores and two to Machines, Alick and Norman the lucky sods, they would be, they gave more lip to old Dallas, they two, than any half-dozen in the whole of Gowans and Gloag’s: and he seemed to like them the better for’t!

  Not that Stores was bad, a fine change from the Furnace, your own bench and lists and pigeon-holes, rows on rows of the tools and castings, birns of stuff to unload for the Shops, finished with being a damn kid in the Works, though the older sods that had been there awhile looked gey glum when you got your shift. And they’d something to look glum about, poor muckers, for afore the change had been a week over there were six of the older hands got the sack, on to the Broo, och, hell, you couldn’t help it. It was just the way that things were run.

  Ewan Tavendale had been moved to the manager’s office, blue-printing, they liked his prints in the shops, a clever young Bulgar as you’
d found out in Furnaces. You didn’t see much of him the first week or so, but syne he came into the Stores one morning and started talking to the foreman chap, wee Eddie Grant, he listened awhile and said Ach to hell, I’ll have nothing to do with it. Look out yourself, you’ll be getting in the faeces. But Ewan, he looked fairly the toff again, clean hands and suit, hair trig and neat, just nodded, All right, if you feel like that. But maybe it’ll be your turn next for the sack. Wee Eddie burbled Me? What the hell! And who’s to take my place I’d like to know? Another of you whoreson apprentice sods?, and Ewan said nothing, just nodded to you, Hello, Bob! and walked out, what the hell was he up to now?

  Well, it was soon all over the works what it was, he was trying to stir up the Union men to threaten a strike if Gowans and Gloag carried on with the plan they’d had year in, year out—taking on apprentices and sacking the old ones, they saved a fair sum on the weekly wage.

  You knew it was Ewan had started the thing, every body knew, and the story came down to the Stores that the manager had had him on the carpet for’t, Ewan hadn’t denied it and the manager had asked if he knew what would happen to him, stirring up trouble? And Ewan had said Oh yes, he knew well, he’d be sacked when his apprenticeship was done. And the manager had roared Well then, less of it. You’ve had your warning, you won’t get another. And Ewan had said Yes, thanks, I’ve been warned.

  There was nothing else for a chap to say, the Union wouldn’t move a foot in the business, it was crammed with Broo folk to the lid already; and the stour died down; and the gleyed Stores mucker who had sneered afore at Ewan as gentry said What do you think of your toff sod now? and you said He’d the guts to try something, anyhow, more than a sheep like you ever would.

  Then Norman came round in the dinner hour with a funny like story you could hardly believe, he said that Ewan’d ta’en up with the Reds, Jim Trease and his crowd, and was going to their meetings. And you said Away, he’s not so daft, and Norman said Ay, hell, but he is. What’s the use of the Reds to any body? They just get out the Broo men and march down the Mile and get their heads bashed in in the end. Well, surely Ewan knew that as well; why was he taking up with them, then? Norman said he was damned if he knew, some rubbish about all working parties co-operating, Ewan had asked him to go to a meeting but he’d said he wouldn’t, he wasn’t so soft, he’d a quean to take out on a Sunday, him, not mess about with a lot of Reds who were just damned traitors to the Labour Movement. Not that it was worth a faeces either. As for Alick, he’d gone skite, same as Ewan, anything Ewan said went down with him.

  Well, hell, that was coarse enough to hear, but whatever made Ewan take up with the Reds? Him a gentleman, too, as you all knew he was though he tried to deny it and that time at your home when he came to tea had acted so fine, you’d all of you liked him, it had been nearly worth spending the day before scrubbing out the place, and hiding the twin, the daftie, and getting in cakes for the tea. So you went now and looked him up in the office, making on you wanted a chit for some tools, he was sitting at his desk among the office muckers, all with their patted hair and posh ties, young college sods no better than you though they tried on their airs if you didn’t watch.

  Ewan cried Hello, Bob! and you said Hello, and Ewan, I’d like to speak to you sometime. And he said Right, let’s get out a minute, and out he came and you asked him point-blank. And he said I didn’t know you’d be interested, and you said Hell, I’m not, and he said Yes, you are. Look here, come along to the Saturday meeting, in the Gallowgate, 3 Pitcarles Wynd. And afore you well kenned what it was you had done you’d promised to be there—oh, sod the whole business!

  But there you were at the chapp of seven, a little bit room with maybe twenty in’t, chaps and some queans all much of your age, chairs and a table and a chair for the chairman and a picture of a chap above the table that had cheated the barber from birth by his look, that awful coarse old billy Marx. Then Ewan came along and made you sit down, and went back to the table to sit by a lassie, a stuck-up bitch with black hair, fine legs, she’d a pen and a lot of papers afore her. And there was a piano up in the corner with a lad sitting at it, and he started to play and you all got up and sang about England arising, the long, long night was over, though the damn thing had barely yet set in, Christ, what a perfect fool you felt not knowing the words, a quean next you pushed a book in your hands, smirked at you, trying to get off, would you say? So you made on to sing, glowering about, there was Alick Watson, bawling like a bellows, if England didn’t awake she must be stone deaf, and another chap you’d seen down in Gowans, an older apprentice out of Machines. Syne the singing stopped and down you all sat, and Ewan looked at the stuck-up get and said Miss Johns will now read the minutes.

  It was only as the quean was doing that that you knew she was English, Haw-Haw-Really-Quite, and found out what the blasted meeting was about, Ewan and some others were getting up a party for the young in Duncairn, neither Labour nor Communist nor yet in opposition, but to try and keep the two of them working in harness for the general good of the working class, get rid of the cowardice and sloth of Labour and cut out the nonsensical lying of the Communists, the older generation in the workers ‘parties had made an idiot mess of things, it was up to the young to straighten things out, join this new workers’ league in Duncairn. You said to yourself you’d be damned if you would, Christ, they’d have you out with a banner next. But then Ewan stood up and started to speak, quiet, not bawling blue hell like the Reds or cracking soft jokes like a Labour man, but just in an ordinary voice and way, telling what he thought this young league could do to waken up all the young workers in Duncairn, get strong enough till the time might come when it would take over Duncairn itself. First, the membership: they’d twenty or less, what they’d now to discuss was a big drive for members: Six minute speeches, not a minute more, and practical suggestions, not oratory, please.

  A red-headed kid of a quean got up, near gave you a fit with what she wanted done—the whole lot go out and march down the Mile with flags and collecting boxes, just, and hold a meeting in the Castlegate. That was the way to win new members and serve the workers…. And you thought she was daft, had she never seen a worker? The Bulgars would laugh and tell her what she wanted was some chap to serve her in another way. Then the lad from Gowans and Gloag’s got up and said what they should do was smuggle a lot of leaflets inside the Shops, and pass them round quiet, you’d get interest that way. And the quean who had given you the glad eye like a Garbo got up and said in a he-haw voice, Christ, another of the bloody toffs, What’s wanted is to advertise the meetings and then hold readings from the great revolutionary poets, beginning with the greatest of all, William Morris. And after that every body was over stunned to say more, except young Ewan, who’d been staring at the roof.

  He got up and said it wasn’t much use marching down the Mile, they’d only get their heads smashed in by the bobbies. Leaflets in the factories wouldn’t help much, no body read leaflets, there were too many about. And the comrade who had suggested reading William Morris had surely meant the Dundee Sunday Post…. What was needed was something light and attractive.

  And at that the English quean beside him, ay, a nice leg, got up and said what they wanted was a tanner hop—she said just that, fair vulgar-like, though you’d heard by now that she was a school-ma’am. She said that would bring in members thick and the dances would pay for themselves twice over.

  Ewan asked if he’d put that as a resolution? And the schoolteacher said Yes, and Ewan put it, and you heard yourself saying I second that, your ears near burning off your head with shame, Creeping Jay, you were in for it now. And only as you were coming away from the meeting did it dawn on you with a hell of a shock that now you were some kind of ruddy Red.

  Ellen waited for Ewan to lock up the room, the air was a stagnant unstirred pool, out by the Crossgate the autumn night lay low in pale saffron over Footforthie. As they turned from the door they could see far down through the winding corridors of the Gal
lowgate the smoulder of the sun as it lost itself in the smoking lowe of Footforthie by night. Ewan said there was night-work again at the shipyards, even Gowans and Gloag’s were looking up a bit, didn’t look much, did it, like capitalism’s collapse?

  They were trudging together up through the streets, half-lighted, smell of urine and old food seeping out from dark doorways, sometimes a grunt as a man would turn in his sleep in the heat, sometimes a snuffle of wakeful children. Ellen said nothing for a little while and Ewan had half- forgotten her when she asked of a sudden: Are you losing heart?

  He said Eh? and then Oh, about capitalism? Losing heart would do a lot of good, wouldn’t it?

  She said then something, queer kid, he was to remember: Anyhow, your heart’s not in it at all. Only your head and imagination.

  —And I’m not in much danger of losing either. You don’t quarrel with History and its pace of change any more than you quarrel with the law of gravitation. History’s instruments, the workers, ’ll turn to us some time—even though it’s only for a sixpenny hop. You or I to see to hiring the hall?

  Ellen said she thought it had better be him, the only one suitable was the Lower School, and they didn’t trust her too much there already. And Ewan looked at her, pale kid, tired kid, and felt an indifferent touch of compassion. Where else might she be if it wasn’t for this belief she’d smitten on him?—at a dance, at the pictures, in a pretty dress. And he dropped the thought, with indifference again. Much better as she was, seeing she wasn’t half-witted.

  They were into the Lower Cowgate by then, ten o’clock and the pubs were spewing out the plebs, raddled with drink, kids crying in the gutter, Ewan saw a man hit a woman in the jaw, she fell with a scream and a bobby came up and an eddy of the crowd came swirling around, and they couldn’t see more, going up Sowans Lane. But halfway up they came on a woman pulling at the coat of a man who was lying half in a doorway, half in the gutter. Och, come on home, you daft Bulgar, she was saying, or the bobbies’ll damn soon land you in the nick. But the childe wasn’t keen to go home at all, he was saying what they wanted was a little song—Come on, you bitch, and give’s a bit tune. And the woman said of all the whoreson’s gets she’d ever met he was the worst: and what song did he want then, the neep-headed nout? And he said he wanted the songs his mucking mother sang, and Εwan and Ellen didn’t hear more, they were out of the Sowans Lane by then, on to the Long Brig where it spanned the Forthie, and stopping to breathe from the Gallowgate fug.