A Scots Quair

  The Bailie nodded and looked up at the clock, Remanded till Friday, and then stood up, every body stood, and a bobby grabbed the bandaged figure.

  As the bobbies passed by below Trease leaned forward: Okay, Ewan?

  —I’m all right. They’ve got nothing out of me. Hello, Chris. Don’t worry.

  Neil Quaritch said he was damnably sorry but he couldn’t do anything with the papers about it, he was only sub-ed and book-hound on the Runner. Besides, the Runner daren’t make a comment on a case sub judice. Not that it would make it if it could. Oh, the police were a pretty low set of brutes, but he couldn’t believe this tripe about Ewan being tortured—this was Duncairn, not Chicago; just Red blah Mrs Colquohoun could discount. Pity Ewan had been led away by the Reds, if he wanted social change there was Douglasism. Financial Credit operated as Social Credit would ensure that the products of Real Credit, though privately owned, were not malaccredited—

  Mr Piddle said He-he! he was dreadfully sorry. Yes, he’d been in the court and seen young Mr Tavendale, and yes, he’d written the story for the Daily Runner. No, he hadn’t intended to offend anyone, but the public must have its news, Mrs Colquohoun. Could she give him a photo for the Tory Pictman? And wasn’t it the case that her husband, the late minister of Segget, had also held—He-he!—rather extremist opinions?

  Jim Trease said plain that of course the Communists would exploit the case to the full—for their own ends first, not for Ewan’s. They’d do all they could for him, but Ewan was nothing to them, just as he, Jim Trease, was nothing.

  Miss Murgatroyd said Eh me, it was Awful, and young Mr Ewan Such Fine to get on with, right interested in the books on old Scottish magic that she’d loaned him—they were Awful Powerful in magic, the Picts. However had he got in such company?—It was said he’d assaulted the police Just Awful and them so kind and obliging, Too. Ask some of her friends at the Unionist Club to interfere?—oh, she couldn’t do that she was feared, it wouldn’t be right, now, would it? And they all terrible against the Reds, not that Mr Tavendale was really one, she knew, but there you were, oh, she was terribly sorry—

  Archie Clearmont said Hell, was that Ewan? Didn’t know he was Red. So was Wagner. Anything whatever I can do to help—

  John Cushnie said nothing but handed in his notice, he couldn’t very well stay on any longer, and him an employé of Raggie Robertson’s, you ken—

  Ellen Johns said, white, Anything you want. I’m a Socialist, too, and I started him on it—he’s a Socialist, not a Red, it’s all a ghastly mistake. Oh, Chris, how did he really look? … Oh, Chris, I’m sorry, I’m a fool to cry, he’d think me a fool—

  Ake Ogilvie said to Chris not to fret. He thought he could maybe fix up this business.

  *

  He went off to his work and bade off the whole day while Chris went about with a mind gone numb, dead brain in her head, scrubbing and cooking and serving the meals, helped by the new maid, a big widow woman who was kind as she could be and never spoke a word about Εwan or the case. The blink of March daylight closed into dark and still Chris worked in a numbing fear; then at last, as it drew to tea-time, she heard the front door open and Ake on the stairs, his slow, independent clump on the stairs. A wee while later he came down again and opened the door: Ay, mistress, a word with you.

  He sat in the sitting-room, filling his pipe: Well, you’re looking on an unemployed man.

  Chris said What? and Ake nodded and struck a match, and took a bit puff, and said Right on the Broo, Jimmy’d finished with him and he with Jimmy. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. The main thing was that Ewan would be safe—or else Jimmy’s bit secret would be all over Duncairn as fast as Ewan’s Red friends and Ake could spread it abroad. Ay, a great thing, scandal.

  Chris gasped Ake, Ake, is’t true? and he said Oh ay. There, mistress, don’t take on so. He’s safe, your loon, they won’t push the case—that’s the quality of justice we’ve got in Duncairn. Sit you still a wee bit and I’ll tell the tale.

  She realized later he told it her so that she might hide in herself again. But her mind at the time frothed over the telling like a wild thing mad to be out of a cage, trying to think, to think that Ewan—

  And Ake said he’d not made the sawmill that morning, but sought out Speight and put it to him that he could get this bit case against the young Red quashed—Ake knew the lad, there was no harm in him, a decent student, and he’d been sore mishandled already by the bobbies. And Jimmy had listened with his long dreich face looking dreicher than ever, and shaken his head, he couldn’t interfere, he’d no power to influence the courts or the bailies. Ake had told him for Christ’s sake not to talk wet, they were both of them out of their hippens by now, the Lord Provost kenned as well as he did that there was as much graft in the average Scots toun as in any damn place across the Atlantic. Who invited contracts for agreed-on tenders? Who arranged the sale of public land and bought it afore the offer was made public? Who took a squeeze off the water rates, and who made a bit thing from the Libraries? And where did the bobbies, inspectors and sergeants, get their extra wages for houses and motors except by acting as pimps for the whores, living off the lasses and running them in when they wouldn’t pay up their weekly whack? And was there a bookie’s pitch in Duncairn that didn’t pay tribute, week in, week out? Not one.

  Speight said that all that was just coarse rumour and scandal, he knew nothing about it, and Ake said Maybe. And you’ll see that this young Tavendale’s let off with a caution, or whatever the flummery’s necessary?

  The Lord Provost had nearly burst with rage then, he’d said he’d be damned if he’d be badgered and blackmailed in this way any longer, all because of a small mistake in his youth—was he the first young childe to rape a lass in a hedge, with a bit of darkness to hide his identity? … And Ake had seen he half-meant what he said, a rat that was fair being driven in a corner, he’d pressed him over-hard and his nerve would gang, the next thing might be Ake himself in the jail.

  So he’d laid his proposition in front of Jimmy: if he’d bring this off in the Tavendale case Ake would never again breathe a single word about that lassie raped in a hedge, never a whisper in public or private, nor seek for any advantage on’t. And the Provost had said And you’ll leave my sawmill? and Ake had given a bit shrug and said Ay. All right, Jimmy, it’s ta-ta, then.

  When Alick Watson had settled with Red Steve Selden he looked more like a mess in a butcher’s shop than a leader that had once been out in Canada and come back to Scotland all in a fash to see to the emancipation of the working class. They fought it out in a Cowgate wynd, four of the chaps had come to see fair play, in the end they held Alick and said to Selden he’d best give best else he’d get bloody murdered.

  Selden coughed and spluttered and stood up again and said he’d never given any man best, it wasn’t his wyte he had bairned the lass and it wasn’t his wyte she’d never let on. Alick said What the hell! You knew all the time! but Selden swore by Christ he never had, if he’d known he’d have done the decent thing. And all the chaps that were standing around cried out to Alick he might believe that, it was true enough, those daft Bulgars the Reds were as scared and respectable about bairning a quean as though they went to the kirk three times on a Sunday and said a grace afore every meal, there was hardly a one but was doucely married, they never looked near a lass if they were, a damn lot of killjoys a lot of folk said…. So Alick had had all his fighting for nothing: and what the hell was his fury for?

  Alick said they could mind their own mucking business; and put on his coat and went up to the Slainges Barracks direct and hung about outside the gates a while, half-feared and yet desperate, the sentry looked at him and said Hello, chum! And Alick said Hello. Is this where you ’list?

  The sentry, he was swinging to and fro in his kilt and carrying a wee stick, not a rifle, took a keek at the guardroom and syne round about, and said For Christ’s sake, what’s ta’en you?—have you lain with your sister or robbed a b
ank? Alick said he’d done neither; and the sentry said not to be a soft sod, then, why join up in this lousy mob? The grub was stinking potatoes, worse beef, seven shillings a week pay and about half of that docked in sports and fines. It was just plain hell when it wasn’t hell decorated.

  Alick said Ah well, he’d just take his chance; and went in through the gates to the office place, a wheen of poor muckers were wheeling round the square, shoggle and thud, they looked half-dead, punishment drill of some kind Alick knew. And he half made up his mind to turn back, then swore at himself for a yellow-livered sod, they couldn’t do worse to him, could they, than the bobbies had done to Ewan?—Oh Christ! And he burst open the door of the office place and went in and they asked who the hell he thought he was, the Colonel, maybe? and closed the door; and that was Alick Watson’s end for the Cowgate.

  Folk heard the news and took it through hand, he must fair have gone skite, the silly young mucker, wearied no doubt with the darg of the strike. Most knew he’d a hand in the drowning of old Johnny Edwards—well, what of that? More than a dozen had had a bit hand, and a damn good job, the lousy old scab. And they didn’t run off in a fear to ’list, they marched with the band that Jim Trease got up to demonstrate outside the Central Court where young Ewan Tavendale was coming up on Friday.

  Banners and slogans, Jake Forbes with his drum, a cold, dreich, early April day. One or two as they slumped along thought of Alick ticking to another drum now. And what would young Tavendale get, would you say?

  Then they heard a bit cheer break out up in front, and the news came flying down the ranks like fire, it was true enough, no it wasn’t, yes it was, there he was coming down the steps himself, his head all bandaged: he waved a hand. He’d been letten off with a bit of a fine, his mother had paid it for him at once, there she was behind—Christ, that his mother? I could sleep with her the morn and think her his sister…. Sulky-looking bitch…. Get out, she’s fine…. There’s Ewan. Now, lads, give him a cheer!

  Into the procession, Chris never knew how, marching by the side of Ewan up the Mile, boomr the drum in the hands of the fat man, big Mr Trease stumping ahead with his grin and his twinkle, Ewan’s hand in hers. She wished they’d left her alone with her son, Ake had stood aside as they came from the court, No, not me, he had said to Jim Trease. I’m no body’s servant, the Broo folk’s or the bobbies’, Chris had liked him for that for she felt the same, had always felt so and felt more than ever that she belonged to herself alone. Except for Ewan: Ewan’s hand in hers. And he looked down and laughed, strained, cool from his bandages: Cheer up, Chris, it’ll soon be over and we can slip off and be respectable!

  … Come dungeon dark or gallows grim

  This song shall be our parting hymn!

  The procession halted below Windmill Steps, Trease had seen to that, he did it for her, Chris knew: a little thing that wouldn’t hurt his propaganda. And the Paldy folk grabbed hold of Ewan and raised him up on the Steps: Come on, gi’es a word, Ewan! and a sudden hush fell, Chris stood back and waited and knew herself forgotten.

  And he said in his clear and cool boy’s voice that they needn’t bother to make a fuss, he’d got no more than any might expect who was out to work for the revolution. One thing he had learned: the Communists were right. Only by force could we beat brute force, plans for peaceful reform were about as sane as hunting a Bengal tiger with a Bible. They must organize the masses, make them think, make them see, let them know there was no way they could ever win to power except through the fight of class against class, till they dragged down the masters and ground them to pulp—

  Then he fainted away on the Windmill Steps.

  April was in with a wild burst of the bonniest weather, fleecings of clouds sailed over Duncairn with the honking geese from Footforthie’s marshes. Out in the little back- garden Chris saw the buds unfolding on bush and twig, and got out her hoe from its winter sleep, over the walls other garden folk were chintering and tamping on the drying earth. And Chris thought in that hour of the bright April day as she hoed round the blackberry bushes and roses—suddenly, with a long-forgotten thrill—what a fine smell was the smell of the earth, earth in long sweeping parks that rolled dark-red in ploughing up the hills of the Howe, earth churned in great acres by the splattering feet of the Clydesdale horses, their breath ablow on a morning like this, their smell the unforgotten stable smell, the curling rigs running to meet the sun. Earth … and she sossed about here in a little yard of stuff that the men she’d once known wouldn’t have paused to wipe their nebs with!

  If Ewan had been as that other Ewan … and she paused, bent over the hoe, at the thought. Was he so unalike? There was something about him since that awful time when he’d fainted on the Steps of Windmill Brae that had minded her of his father back from the War—not the Ewan of the foul mind and foul speech, but that darker being she’d not kenned in those days, only later when the tale of his death was brought her: that being who had been the real Ewan imprisoned, desperate, a wild beast seeking a shelter she hadn’t provided, a torn and tormented thing seeking a refuge—

  Och, she was silly to think that in this case of her little lad whom those beasts had mistreated—though he’d had no great mistreating, he’d told her, he was fine and would soon be about again.

  She heard the sound of footsteps coming from the house and looked up and saw, and looked down again. And she thought with a whimsical, cool dismay it was funny she couldn’t be letten a-be even out in the yard—a sore-harried body! And the whimsy went, she was cool and kind.

  Ay, mistress, I want a bit crack with you.

  —Yes, Ake.

  He blew out a cloud of smoke, brushed it aside, he was standing with his big, well-blacked boots unlaced, his waistcoat open, his mouser well-curled, undisturbed, unhur- rying, she felt his gaze on the side of her face. And he said they’d held up this business of a decision while he’d loaned her the money to carry on the house and ward off Mistress Cleghorn’s holy bitch of a niece: but now came an accounting one way or the other: Are you going to have me, then, as your man?

  And Chris unbent from the hoe and turned to him and that thing that had once been a poet in Ake’s heart and was strangled with rage ere it ever reached vision, started sudden within him, oh bonny she was, sulky and gay with her bonny bronze hair. And she said, quiet and sweet, Yes, if he’d have her. She was nothing of a bargain for all that he’d done.

  He thought through the dark of every night Oh God, if only I could sleep! And sleep came seldom, hour on hour, while he fought to lock back in his memory those pictures: pictures of himself in that prison cell, in the hands of the bobbies while they mauled him about, pictures … and he’d cover his face with his hands, bury his face in the pillow to forget the sick shame of it. He, Εwan Tavendale, held like a beast, his body uncovered and looked upon, jeered at, smeared with the foulness of those filthy eyes as battered by their filthy hands, held and tormented like a frog in the hands of a gang of school-kids. His body that once he’d hardly known, so easy and cool and sweet-running it had been: now in the dark it was a loathsome thing that he lay within, a foul thing he didn’t dare look upon.

  In the grip of that fear he locked his room every night, went about the house swathed up to the chin, Chris was watching, she’d know, Chris or else Ellen. Ellen and he once—sickening to think of, filthy and dirty, lips like hers on his…. Oh, God, please let me sleep!

  Jim Trease called in that day with the news that the strike at last had come to an end, he sat with Ewan in the sitting-room, big, heavy and red, his little eyes twinkling. They’d all gone back and were cheerily at work making their armament bits again—’twas even said that Gowans were to install a gas-loading plant soon. Oh, the strikers had got the speeding up slowed down and a bit of an increase on all the piece-rates, Bolivia and Japan were in a hell of a stamash to get arms: and Gowans were dancing in tune.

  —And I went through what I did—just for that?

  Jim Trease nodded, Ay, just for that. An
d for just the same kind of result he’d been going through the like things a good fifteen years—living on pay a little better than a Broo man’s, working out his guts for those thick-witted sods…. He twinkled his eyes and smoked his cigarette, looking like a Christmas pig, Ewan thought, with some foolish toy stuck in its mouth by a butcher…. And he’d do it another fifteen years till the bobbies got him down in some bit of a riot and managed to kick in his skull, he supposed—For it’s me and you are the working-class, not the poor Bulgars gone back to Gowans. And suddenly was serious an untwinkling minute: A hell of a thing to be History, Ewan!

  And for awhile his words and the image they painted abided with Ewan when Trease himself had gone shambling away across Windmill Place, turning, stout, shabby, to wave ta-ta. A hell of a thing to be History!—not a student, a historian, a tinkling reformer, but living history oneself, being it, making it, eyes for the eyeless, hands for the maimed!—

  And then he was shrinking back from the window at the sight of Ellen; but she’d seen him; waved. And across his memory there swept again, picture on picture, an obscene film, something they’d stick in him while he writhed, a bobby’s hand—

  Ewan!

  He kept his face buried in his arms, feeling her arms around him, tight, her hair against his cheek, shivering away from the touch of that. And he said to her Go away! and she wouldn’t, kept close to him, holding him, shaking him: Ewan, listen, you’re to tell me what’s wrong with you — what I’ve done that you avoid me like this. Ewan, do you hate me so much and so suddenly?

  He told her he didn’t hate her at all, it was just that he was white-livered, he supposed. And sat up and pushed her away, not looking at her, looking a boy still, with the scar down his temple healed by now. Ewan scarred: last time it had been the keelies, this time the police: who next? and she shuddered as he himself had done. And then in the queerest fashion it came to her that she knew what was wrong, suddenly, she tingled with a blush that spread all over her body, neck, cheek and breast, goodness knew how far, a blush of unbearable shame and compassion: Oh Ewan, poor Ewan!