Absolution
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Historical
Swearwords: One strong one only.
Description: When high-rise flats were first built, they reset the standard for housing. At the start of the Swinging Sixties, there were still people living in tenements that had been condemned in the Twenties.
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A’m wabbit. It’s not surprising really since I was up at six gettin’ the last of the packing done. I left the old bureau ‘til last because it had a’ the secrets; the lock on the roll-top is no’ very strong but it kept the kids out. I would have liked to take it to the new place but its riddled wi’ woodworm. Just as well, really; it holds too many memories.
“A’ll jist pit the kettle on.” I said it out loud although there’s only me to hear. I usually have the wireless on but it went in the van yesterday with the bits I’m takin’ with me. I’ve noticed that I speak with a rougher accent when I’m alone or upset. Not that I’m ashamed that I have picked up a bit of Kelvinside in recent years. I think it’s because I had to hide it so long in this house.
“Half ten – A’ve time fur forty winks afore Judy comes.”
The clock is still on the mantelpiece. I suppose I’ll give in to Judy and take it with me. She was appalled when I said I was leavin’ it.
‘Presented to William J Hart on the occasion of his retirement. From the management and staff of J B Cartwright & Co.’
Judy’s a lovely wee lass. She was all business at first when the council sent her to get me out but we became friends the day she burst into tears because her fiancée dumped her. She has a lovely face and does her hair nice. In Victorian times she would have been considered a ravishing beauty.
She has nice skin that would have looked well in a long gown. She’s not so bonny in a mini skirt. She has thick ankles and when she sits you can see her fat thighs bulging over her stocking tops – her suspenders sink into the flesh. I know it’s the fashion but it’s a shame for her.
The room looks awful bare, with nothing but the bureau, two suitcases and a tea chest besides Willie’s old fireside chair. I could have had it recovered but I got a nice new Ercol for my new place. I take the photo album from the tea chest and sit thumbing through it while I wait for the kettle to boil.
Mostly the pictures are just family snaps taken with the box brownie but there are a couple of studio shots of us and the weans. There’s a picture of the four of us with nice neat white writing across the bottom: ‘Broughty Ferry – Summer 1925.’
Johnny would have been five, already showin’ signs of bein’ tall, and Myrna was just three, a wee cloutie dumpling in her frilly bathin’ suit. Willie looked proud and handsome and I have to admit that I looked quite pretty. At least the photographer thought so for he tried it on with me when I went to pick up the picture during the week! We took a flat for a month but Willie could only take a week off work so he came over for the weekends for the rest of the time. It was the first time that we had lived apart since we got married.
I was only seventeen when I met Willie the year after the war. He was on demob leave so he was still in his corporal’s uniform. He came into the shop and I fell for him right away. He was so handsome and gallus that I would have run away with him there and then if he had asked. I was a bit disappointed when he only asked me to go to the dancin’ with him.
I was right smitten so I didnae play hard to get when he asked me to be his. He had been apprenticed to Cartwrights before he joined up and they were happy to take him back. We stayed with my Mum at first but then he came home one day absolutely burstin’ with pride. He had bought this place and we moved in just before Myrna was born.
Here we’ve stayed ever since. The children know no other home. I have to be honest: it has not been a happy house. I had a miscarriage the year after our holiday in Broughty Ferry and they had to take bits away so I coudnae have any more weans. Willie was upset and started drinkin’ a bit more than was good for him. He didn’t exactly blame me but you would have thought that he was the only one to suffer.
There was a time when it was touch and go whether I would recover and I’ve had chronic back pain since but when I got home from hospital Willie expected me to sympathise with him! We settled back down again after a while but it always rankled with me. I started to think more of myself instead of deferring to Willie.
When the kids were both at school I wanted to go back to work but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was a foreman by this time and we didn’t need the money.
“I’m no’ to be shamed! Nae wife of mine is goin’ to work. Get a job and you can get oot.”
No point in arguing with him in that mood, so the next day after I walked the weans to the school I went on and joined the Burgh library. I was enthralled! All those books filled with learning and every one of them within my reach. Without leaving Govan I could explore the whole world. That first day I strayed into the history section and in a sense I have stayed in it ever since.
When I was at school they told us about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce but they never told us about where we lived. I set to work to find the history of Glasgow and when I was done with that I started on Govan, Hutchesons Town and Gorbals.
The Burgh library had plenty of books on Scottish history and a few on Glasgow but it had very little about our own local area. I was pals with the librarian by this time and he suggested that I went to The Mitchell Library in the middle of Glasgow. I bided my time until Myrna went to secondary school, then I put my pencil and notebook in my bag and took the tram to George Square.
I almost lost my nerve when I saw the Mitchell for the first time. I sat on a bench for nearly an hour talking myself into facing the ordeal of going up the steps to the door. When I finally plucked up courage and keeked round the door, I was met by a lad who invited me in. It turned out that it was his first week working in the library.
Alasdair had a degree in history and he was enthusiastic about my search. Every time I visited, he would have a wee list of books that I should take to the reading room. Most of these books were not allowed to leave the building; you had to sit and make notes then return them to the desk before you left. It could be quite awkward for I was often the only woman in the reading room but Alasdair had a wee office and he let me take the books in there to study.
You might think it was a big waste of time for a married woman to study history but it paid off. It started with Jamesie. He and his wife lived three doors down and we had been friends since they moved in. After his wife died I helped him a bit with the house but he began drinkin’ and let himself go so I gave up on him.
Judy was tryin’ to get him out but he was refusin’ to go. She would come to me in floods o’ tears after he had chased her down the street yellin’ abuse. I told her to leave it to me and I went to sort Jamesie out.
“Come away in, Elsie hen. Hiv ye come to gi’e me a wee cuddle?”
“Yer kiddin’, right? Ye’r clartie and ye’r smellin’ up this end o’ the street.”
Now I’m not averse to a white lie, so I may have given Jamesie the impression that if he cleaned himself up, went to the Fifty Bob Tailors and moved to the new flat, a certain amount of cuddling would be possible.
“Efter a’, Elsie, you’re a widow and A’m a widower….” More of a non sequitor, I have to say, than my idea of a match made in heaven.
The outcome was that Jamesie moved into a new High Rise. I was careful to take Judy with me when I visited him, I can tell you! The councillor that Judy worked for told the papers about the wonderful work they had done so she and Jamesie were both interviewed. Judy, bless her heart, felt guilty because she was getting all the praise but I was glad to keep out of it. I was less offensive than Jamesie and a good deal cleaner but I still hadn’t agreed to leave my home. There were only a handful of us left holding up the grand schemes of the council for turning the area into an earthly paradise of thirty storey concrete slabs.
They started by bullyin’ us but, after the residents barricaded the next street and the Polis got involved, Judy was appointed to wheedle us out. The councillor involved was standing for parliament and the last thing he wanted was bad publicity.
Judy came in all flushed the day after she had her picture in the Bulletin with Jamesie and Councillor Grey. He was going to honour me with a visit the next day. She had told me about splittin’ up with Graham but she refused to go into details. I took another look at the picture in the paper and I thought: ‘Ah ha!’
When I started in the shop the owner seemed to me like god. He wasnae that much to look at and he had a wife and children but I thought he had an aura. When he started feelin’ me up in the stock room A began tae get ideas aboot him runnin’ away with me. Excuse me, my accent slips a wee bit when I’m thinking back to how naïve I was.
Anyway, I was beginnin’ to think that Judy had fallen for the same load o’ mince from the Councillor. As soon as I saw them together I knew I was right. She was fussin’ around him, introducin’ me and helpin him off wi’ his Crombie coat. He managed to give her bum a wee squeeze in the process.
“Oh Judy love, A forgot tae get biscuits. Take a ten bob note oot ma purse and run doon and get some, hen. Make sure their Beatties, noo.”
He took my hand in both of his and bent at the waist to talk directly to me. He was the Labour candidate for parliament but I think he had been takin’ classes in suckin’ up to voters.
“I may call you Elsie, mayn’t I? It was so good of you to help little Judy that I just had to come round and thank you myself. James is so happy and so pleased to tell the press about his new flat with a magnificent view of the Clyde and the Kilpatrick hills in the background.
“Now we must just get you your very own little butt and ben, as you call it, then our job will be almost done. I think in the circumstances we will let you have a choice of the wonderful views when you pick your flat.”
“I’m not goin’ into one of your monstrosities.”
“Far from being monstrosities, they’re the last word in modern living...”
“Do you live in one?”
“Well, no actually, bit A wid if A didnae hiv a pokey wee hoose in Milngavie.”
The first wee setback, I thought, and the carefully groomed accent slips. I’ll just give him another wee push.
“I’m not going into a High Rise and that’s flat.”
“Aye ye wull! There’ sich a thing as cumpulsiry purchase an’ A’ll make sure ye get the worst o’ it. Nae auld biddy’s goanny stop me getting’ intae the Hoose.”
The polite veneer peeled off awful easy; I was almost ashamed of how easy it was going to be.
“You can’t tear down this house. It’s part of the history of the old village of Govan and they’ll slap a preservation order on it.”
“Whit the hell are ye talkin’ aboot ye dementit auld bitch?”
So I told him that the house was built of stones quarried locally to build houses for the gaffers in the coal mines that the Corporation dug in the eighteenth century. The preservation folk would jump at the chance of saving this bit of history. His face had been purple with rage but I got his attention. He needed us out so he could put up more High Rises and he knew that he would be delayed if not totally stopped if I was right.
“How wid an auld womin like you know that?”
So I told him of my years of research in the Mitchell Library and I even showed him some of the notes and references I had made. I could see that I had convinced him. He was in a cleft stick: if he checked whether I was right the word would leak out; I was bettin’ that he wouldnae take the risk.
“A don’t believe ye want tae stay in this dump. There’s damp half way up the walls.” As he calmed down his accent began to recover. He had recognised that I was ready to negotiate and that was what he did best.
“I want to move all right but I’ve got my eye on a nice wee place in Old Kilpatrick.”
He smiled at that, thinking that I had overreached myself.
“I can’t help you, I’m afraid. Old Kilpatrick is West Dunbartonshire – out of my jurisdiction.”
“I thought I read that you and John Lawrence were right pally thegither – did A no’ read that he wanted you on the Rangers Board?”
He thought for a few minutes, striding about my wee front room, and then he asked if he could use the phone.
“Certainly, I keep it in a big red box at the street corner.”
So that’s where I’m off to when Judy comes to get me. It’s a lovely wee place in Lusset Glen. A two-bedroom, mid-terrace facin’ the Glen and backin’ onto nice bungalows. My pal, Jenny, moved there about three years ago and she was keen for me to join her.
When Judy got back with the biscuits Councillor Grey decided not to stay for tea. He had had enough of me, I think. As I helped him on with his coat I dusted off an invisible hair and whispered in his ear.
“And keep your manky hands off wee Judy or I’ll let your wife know. Her daddy’s the provost, is he no?”
I told him no lies but I did fail to mention that the stones had been rescued when the original cottages were demolished in 1916. This house was new when Willie bought it. It didnae have a damp course because the bampot that built it didnae know about such refinements.
Old Cartwright was a joiner and he took the old historical properties to cover a bad debt. He employed a big dimwit called George Turnbull to demolish them so he could sell the land. Cartwright’s daughter took a fancy to George’s muscles and she talked her Daddy into keeping him on to build four new houses using the old stones. George fancied himself as a builder but he couldnae have built a sandcastle.
By the time Willie was demobbed, Mr Turnbull was the boss and old man Cartwright was settled in a nice house in Turnberry right beside the golf course. The old man had run the business from his work bench but George got himself an office with carpets, a bar and a secretary to keep the books. By 1917 when George gathered the reins, men were in short supply so he employed a lassie as bookkeeper.
Ruth was the daughter of a minister, brought up strictly in the manse. Only his patriotism induced her father to let her out into the wicked world. She was tall and angular with a face like a horse and she was innocent of the ways of the world. Mr Turnbull soon convinced her that it was part of her duties to become his mistress.
It upset her because it seemed to be against the teaching of her father although he was so circumspect in his approach to the sins of men that she had no clear idea if what she and George were up to was the thing her daddy had warned her against. She needed advice so she turned her trusting equine countenance to Willie. He was a good-lookin’ bloke with a sympathetic smile that could pass for genuine; I suppose she could have picked someone worse.
He assured her that not only was it all right to carry on doing what she was doing with Mr Turnbull it would be better if she allowed him the same favours. Friday afternoons, George travelled down to Turnberry to spend the weekend with his wife and father in law. Willie let Ruth buy him his lunch then took her back to the office and taught her a few tricks that George did not know.
He saw no reason to stop when he was courting me and he continued to impregnate Ruth even after we were married. She liked Willie better than her boss, perhaps because she had to call him Mr Turnbull even when her knickers were round her ankles and he was exercising droit de seigneur.
When the four houses were almost complete, Willie surprised George in flagrante and demanded a special price for our home as the cost of his silence. When that deal was done without demur Willie went on to require a promotion to foreman. I think he was going to ask for an office but George began to growl so he let that go. I knew nothing about the deal until after Willie’s funeral although I guessed that something unethical had happened.
Ruth didn’t come to the funeral although I thought I caught a glimpse of her in the road when we turned in at that lovely gate to the Southern Necropolis. Two days later she knocked at my door and asked if she could clear her conscience. She had always been thin but now she looked gaunt although she was wearing a smart coat and expensive boots.
She had gone back to religion and was going to a kirk where the minister had explained everything. His wife had died a wee while before leaving him to look after eight weans under ten – I should think the woman was quite pleased to go. Anyway, the minister told Ruth that sex was all right. Reading between the lines it was especially all right between a widower and a spinster. That just left adultery with Willie on her conscience.
I gave her absolution and, after she left, I got thinking about confession. I’ve done some things in ma life that society disnae approve off. To be absolutely honest there’s a few things A’ve done that A don’t approve of masel’! I did the things so it’s only right that I should suffer for them. Seein’ Ruth goin’ away happy because I forgave her made me wonder.
I don’t intend to tell my story to the Daily Record – if they can’t publish Lady Chatterley they’ll have trouble with my memoirs! I just got to thinking that I had treated Myrna awful badly. I was relieved when she went to America as one of the first GI brides not because I didn’t love her but because I would have had to tell her things that would shock her.
We wrote to each other every week but they were mostly just chatty letters with funny wee stories about our lives. In all the years she’s lived in the States there’s only been a handful of letters that showed the emotions we were feeling at the time. Like me, she keeps things to herself.
When she left school, Willie got her a job in the typing pool at Cartwright’s. They were progressive employers, to give them their due, and they paid for her to go to Stowe College to evening classes. She was happy enough, I thought, until the war started. She had always been a Daddy’s girl and even after she left school she would sit on Willie’s lap and cuddle him. Then she suddenly announced that she was a Landgirl.
She went first to a forest near Fort Augustus but there was nothin’ to do after work and she hated it. In 1942 she got a move to Rosneath Home Farm right next door to the castle where there were Americans working for Eisenhower. Our Myrna had one of the first pairs of American knickers in Scotland – you know the kind: one Yank and they’re down! She used to write about her ‘dates’ as she called them but we knew things were serious when she brought a Master Sergeant to see us.
Willie didn’t like Yanks and he certainly didn’t warm to Hank although he managed to be civil to him. The lad was very polite, calling Willie ‘sir’ and me ‘ma’m’ and he was clearly besotted with Myrna.
“I reckoned we had about everything in Oklahoma where I come from, ma’m, but we got nothin’ that is near as pretty as your daughter.”
Whether Willie would ever have come round, I don’t know but the telegram from the War Office ended any chance of him being reconciled to the Yankee Invasion, as he called it. Our son, Johnny, had signed professional for Partick Thistle but he never got a game before he went to end his life in the Western Desert. Twenty-two years old, on the threshold of life and snuffed out by a Nazi bullet.
When Hank came round to offer his condolences, Willie tried to throttle him.
“Ah don’t want yer sympathy – Ah want you lyin’ dead in the desert and Johnny here winchin’ oor lassies instead o’ you bloody Yanks.”
That was the first time Willie ever swore in our house. He used to say that he heard enough bad language at work. Myrna took Hank away and she didn’t come back until Willie was in the Southern General after he collapsed in the pub. That became his home in the years following Johnny’s death. He only came back to the house to sleep – in the spare room, I should add.
Her and me started writing our weekly letters as soon as she went away with Hank. She married him and went back on the first ship carryin’ GI brides. I went to the pictures to see ‘Oklahoma’ so I thought Hank must be a cowboy but it turned out that his family owned oil wells. Hank Junior was born in 1945 and Vivian in 1947, the same year as they divorced. She moved to California with Marcus and gave birth to Wayne in 1951.
That marriage also ended in divorce and she was separated from her third husband when he had a heart attack and she moved back in to nurse him. It was while they were living apart that she came back to see Willie in hospital and she cut the visit short when her husband took ill. He was an estate agent, what they call a ‘realator’, and Myrna had taken over the business.
She made her peace with Willie but she and me only talked about his illness before she had to rush back to the States. Her Daddy didn’t approve of her lifestyle: marriage is for life, he used to say. That was a bit rich considering that he was fuckin’ Ruth before and after our honeymoon and went on having affairs until he was too ill. He was always smooth and handsome so he specialised in innocent wee lassies that were impressed by his style. Myrna was the only sixteen year old ever to work for Cartwright’s that he didnae try to seduce and, if I’m totally honest, I’m no’ that sure that his thoughts about her were always pure.
I felt terribly guilty. It’s all my fault, you see. Myrna is just like me and I might have been able to guide her if she had stayed at home. As it was, I was pleased to see the back of her because she looked so much like her father that it broke my heart to look at her. She couldn’t get over for Willie’s funeral but she arrived three months later after buryin’ her own man.
She was stayin’ in the Central Station Hotel and I was to have lunch with her but I arrived early so I could confess. The man at the desk knew me and A nearly had him greetin’ when I told him that I wanted to surprise my daughter. I left my wee overnight case with him and went up to her room.
She was pleased to see me and we chatted for a wee while about things. I saw the latest pictures of my grandchildren and heard all the things they were up to. Hank Junior has his own car – automobile, he calls it! He was on the football team, but it’s more like rugby, she told me. Instead of settling me, this family gossip was making me more nervous. When I began pacing the floor, Myrna stopped talking and looked at me:
“Spit it out, Mom. Have you got a new guy?” Then she paled and clutched my hands. “You’re not ill, are you? We have great doctors in the States. I’ll take you back with me.”
“We have great doctors here too. No, hen, A’m no’ ill, just apprehensive about what I have to say.
“Willie wasn’t faithful to me you know.”
“Everybody knew that Mom. He even got fresh with me. That’s why I left home.”
“I did wonder at the time so I told him to try his charm on that Shonah, your mate’s big sister. She had the hots for him – that’s why she was so nasty to you. It’s no’ his infidelity I want to tell you about – it’s mine!”
I started with my boss feelin’ me up, admitting that I liked it but I was too scared to let him go the whole way. After the honeymoon I went back for a month to help train a new girl in the stockroom, at least that’s what I told my new husband! After I gave Willie his breakfast and saw him off to work, I went to the shop where I spent the day, naked in bed with my boss in a wee flat above the stock room. It only lasted a week before his wife came into the shop askin’ for him. Rose sat her down and came into the stockroom to make her a cup of tea, she said, but really to come up the stair and warn us. He had been feelin’ Rose up as well and she was glad to see the back o’ me and take my place between the sheets.
While I was speakin’, Myrna had gone white then red, pushing both hands into her hair.
“So Johnny might not have been Dad’s?” I held my breath waiting for the next question. “Was that the only time you strayed?” I let my breath out with a ‘whoosh’. She had missed the point, but only for long enough to let me get through the rest of the ordeal.
“I didnae stray, as you call it, very often.”
“How often is that, Mom?”
“You’ll no’ mind the holiday in Broughty Ferry. You and Johnny used to play in the photographer’s studio while him and me were at it like rabbits in the darkroom.”
Then I told her about the penny-a-week insurance man that paid out his own pocket, I wasnae the only one, of course, and he was put in jail when he couldnae afford to pay all the free insurance he was offering and his bosses found out. He wasn’t a very good lover; it was always over too quick for me but then he was workin’ to a very tight schedule.
Alasdair at the Mitchell was a right Mummy’s boy. I was the first woman he had touched since his Mum stopped tuckin’ him in. He was like a fresh canvas for a painter and I was quite pleased with the job I made of him. His Mummy found him a wife and A’ll bet the wee lassie’s eyes lit up when he showed her what he could do in bed!
“I gave Jamesie a few wee treats after Helen died…”
“You don’t mean Uncle Jamesie?” Myrna interrupted.
“Well he’s no’ your real Uncle. Anyway that’s my lot. A strayed wi’ just six men.”
“You’ve only told me about five. Did you forget the sixth?”
“Oh no. A’ll never forget your father. He is the best, the love of my life.”
She had been pulling at her hair so that her perm was in tatters. Now she sat very still, her mouth open and her eyes fixed on mine.
“It says William Hart on my birth certificate.”
“After Johnny was born A had whit the doctor ca’ed post-natal depression. Really A wis jist feelin’ guilty that Willie wisnae the faither. I went to see Doctor Munro and he explained it all to me. He had just started in practice then and he was very patient with me. Nowadays they just fill you up wi’ Vallium but he listened to me.
“He used to take my hand and reassure me but one thing led to another and before either of us knew what was happening we became lovers. He was so gentle and caring but strong and virile at the same time. He was engaged and I was married but we lived in a bubble that burst one day when we forgot to lock the door into the waiting room and a polis came in to get the doctor to a man that had fell under a tram.
“With all the others it was just lust – I like doin’ things wi’ men – but with Hamish it’s true love.”
“No wonder he was so nice to me when we went to the surgery!”
“You look awful like him, you know. He saw it too – that’s why he grew a beard, so folk wouldn’t see the resemblance.”
“I should feel shattered but, do you know what? I’m relieved. I never liked my Daddy – Willie. He was always too smarmy and the way he looked at me when I was growing up made me squirm. I always felt real comfortable with Doctor Munro; I often wished he was my Daddy.”
She came across to me then and we hugged each other. The last time we had done that was 1939 when she went off to be a Landgirl. Twenty-three years without a hug is far too long. It was after twelve so we checked our faces and did what we could to sort out her hair. Then we went downstairs to the restaurant for lunch.
I filled in a lot of details that kept me blushing and she told me about her marriages and her affairs. It turned out that she was just as bad as me so I felt a lot better. By the time we were at the coffee stage we were grinnin’ at each other like old friends. I can’t tell you what a weight was lifted from my heart.
“Would you like to meet your father?” Myrna turned white and I thought for a minute she was goin’ to faint.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Well not at this second but I know where he will be at half past seven. He’s taking me to the ‘Five Past Eight’ show at the Alhambra. I told him to get three tickets.”
I had lost touch with Hamish Munro when he retired. I stayed with his practice but we were careful never to be alone. When Willie died he sent me a condolence card with a wee note saying he and his wife were well. Then when she died I sent him a letter and we discovered that we still felt the same for each other after I agreed to meet him at the Willow Tea Rooms.
The problem now was his wife’s sister. After her man died she moved in with them, nursed Hamish’s wife and stayed put. She kept an even closer eye on him than her sister had and she kept dropping hints about what he should do when he got over his loss. The BMA now had a club for retired doctors that it didn’t even know about: Hamish was able to make an overnight stay in Glasgow once a month to attend.
“He hates lyin’ but I convinced him that it should be true. It’s just the sort of club the BMA should open.”
When we got back to Myrna’s room I was worn out. The nervous tension had left me limp.
“I was dreadin’ this, you know, but you’ve taken it really calmly. Are you no’ shocked to find that your mother has been a scarlet woman?”
She gave me a big hug, and then she held my face in both her hands and kissed me on my brow.
“It’s just a tremendous relief to find that I’m not the only one in the family that’s screwed up her love life. I’ve been beating myself up all these years thinking that my morals were way below the standard you set me.”
We were recovering from an attack of giggles at that idea when there was a knock on the hotel room door. Myrna opened it to Hamish standing there with his face brick red and lookin’ ready to run away if she said ‘boo’ to him. Instead she threw her arms round his neck.
That was a month ago and now I’m sitting waitin’ for Judy to come and get me. She let herself in pushing a glaikit big lad ahead of her.
“This is Graham. The engagements on again. Can ye manage that tea chest on yer own, honey? We’ve time for a cuppa afore we go.” As usual I just waited until she stopped to breathe.
“I thought we might have a cup at the airport sittin’ watchin’ the planes.”
Hamish and me’s goin’ to California for a wee holiday. Judy’s takin’ me to my new house where he’s waitin’ for us, then on to the airport. When Myrna heard that we were playin’ hide and seek with Hamish’s sister in law she gave us a right mouthful.
“I’m forty this year. You two have put other people first for far too long. I’ll go and tell my new Aunt if you won’t.”
So we missed the ‘Five Past Eight’ show and drove down to face our dragon instead. I wouldnae say she was happy about it but she cheered up when we told her she could have the house. Myrna left at the end of the week but only after we promised to come to see her and the weans in California. We took her to the airport and while Hamish went off to buy her a quarter of mint imperials to sook to stop her ears poppin,’ she had the last word.
“It’s really lovely to see you two so much in love. You don’t have to tell me, but do you still have a physical relationship?”
“Aye, we still have a wee bit of sex but the truth is that passion is less important than compassion when you get to our time of life.”
Swearwords: One strong one only.
Description: When high-rise flats were first built, they reset the standard for housing. At the start of the Swinging Sixties, there were still people living in tenements that had been condemned in the Twenties.
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A’m wabbit. It’s not surprising really since I was up at six gettin’ the last of the packing done. I left the old bureau ‘til last because it had a’ the secrets; the lock on the roll-top is no’ very strong but it kept the kids out. I would have liked to take it to the new place but its riddled wi’ woodworm. Just as well, really; it holds too many memories.
“A’ll jist pit the kettle on.” I said it out loud although there’s only me to hear. I usually have the wireless on but it went in the van yesterday with the bits I’m takin’ with me. I’ve noticed that I speak with a rougher accent when I’m alone or upset. Not that I’m ashamed that I have picked up a bit of Kelvinside in recent years. I think it’s because I had to hide it so long in this house.
“Half ten – A’ve time fur forty winks afore Judy comes.”
The clock is still on the mantelpiece. I suppose I’ll give in to Judy and take it with me. She was appalled when I said I was leavin’ it.
‘Presented to William J Hart on the occasion of his retirement. From the management and staff of J B Cartwright & Co.’
Judy’s a lovely wee lass. She was all business at first when the council sent her to get me out but we became friends the day she burst into tears because her fiancée dumped her. She has a lovely face and does her hair nice. In Victorian times she would have been considered a ravishing beauty.
She has nice skin that would have looked well in a long gown. She’s not so bonny in a mini skirt. She has thick ankles and when she sits you can see her fat thighs bulging over her stocking tops – her suspenders sink into the flesh. I know it’s the fashion but it’s a shame for her.
The room looks awful bare, with nothing but the bureau, two suitcases and a tea chest besides Willie’s old fireside chair. I could have had it recovered but I got a nice new Ercol for my new place. I take the photo album from the tea chest and sit thumbing through it while I wait for the kettle to boil.
Mostly the pictures are just family snaps taken with the box brownie but there are a couple of studio shots of us and the weans. There’s a picture of the four of us with nice neat white writing across the bottom: ‘Broughty Ferry – Summer 1925.’
Johnny would have been five, already showin’ signs of bein’ tall, and Myrna was just three, a wee cloutie dumpling in her frilly bathin’ suit. Willie looked proud and handsome and I have to admit that I looked quite pretty. At least the photographer thought so for he tried it on with me when I went to pick up the picture during the week! We took a flat for a month but Willie could only take a week off work so he came over for the weekends for the rest of the time. It was the first time that we had lived apart since we got married.
I was only seventeen when I met Willie the year after the war. He was on demob leave so he was still in his corporal’s uniform. He came into the shop and I fell for him right away. He was so handsome and gallus that I would have run away with him there and then if he had asked. I was a bit disappointed when he only asked me to go to the dancin’ with him.
I was right smitten so I didnae play hard to get when he asked me to be his. He had been apprenticed to Cartwrights before he joined up and they were happy to take him back. We stayed with my Mum at first but then he came home one day absolutely burstin’ with pride. He had bought this place and we moved in just before Myrna was born.
Here we’ve stayed ever since. The children know no other home. I have to be honest: it has not been a happy house. I had a miscarriage the year after our holiday in Broughty Ferry and they had to take bits away so I coudnae have any more weans. Willie was upset and started drinkin’ a bit more than was good for him. He didn’t exactly blame me but you would have thought that he was the only one to suffer.
There was a time when it was touch and go whether I would recover and I’ve had chronic back pain since but when I got home from hospital Willie expected me to sympathise with him! We settled back down again after a while but it always rankled with me. I started to think more of myself instead of deferring to Willie.
When the kids were both at school I wanted to go back to work but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was a foreman by this time and we didn’t need the money.
“I’m no’ to be shamed! Nae wife of mine is goin’ to work. Get a job and you can get oot.”
No point in arguing with him in that mood, so the next day after I walked the weans to the school I went on and joined the Burgh library. I was enthralled! All those books filled with learning and every one of them within my reach. Without leaving Govan I could explore the whole world. That first day I strayed into the history section and in a sense I have stayed in it ever since.
When I was at school they told us about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce but they never told us about where we lived. I set to work to find the history of Glasgow and when I was done with that I started on Govan, Hutchesons Town and Gorbals.
The Burgh library had plenty of books on Scottish history and a few on Glasgow but it had very little about our own local area. I was pals with the librarian by this time and he suggested that I went to The Mitchell Library in the middle of Glasgow. I bided my time until Myrna went to secondary school, then I put my pencil and notebook in my bag and took the tram to George Square.
I almost lost my nerve when I saw the Mitchell for the first time. I sat on a bench for nearly an hour talking myself into facing the ordeal of going up the steps to the door. When I finally plucked up courage and keeked round the door, I was met by a lad who invited me in. It turned out that it was his first week working in the library.
Alasdair had a degree in history and he was enthusiastic about my search. Every time I visited, he would have a wee list of books that I should take to the reading room. Most of these books were not allowed to leave the building; you had to sit and make notes then return them to the desk before you left. It could be quite awkward for I was often the only woman in the reading room but Alasdair had a wee office and he let me take the books in there to study.
You might think it was a big waste of time for a married woman to study history but it paid off. It started with Jamesie. He and his wife lived three doors down and we had been friends since they moved in. After his wife died I helped him a bit with the house but he began drinkin’ and let himself go so I gave up on him.
Judy was tryin’ to get him out but he was refusin’ to go. She would come to me in floods o’ tears after he had chased her down the street yellin’ abuse. I told her to leave it to me and I went to sort Jamesie out.
“Come away in, Elsie hen. Hiv ye come to gi’e me a wee cuddle?”
“Yer kiddin’, right? Ye’r clartie and ye’r smellin’ up this end o’ the street.”
Now I’m not averse to a white lie, so I may have given Jamesie the impression that if he cleaned himself up, went to the Fifty Bob Tailors and moved to the new flat, a certain amount of cuddling would be possible.
“Efter a’, Elsie, you’re a widow and A’m a widower….” More of a non sequitor, I have to say, than my idea of a match made in heaven.
The outcome was that Jamesie moved into a new High Rise. I was careful to take Judy with me when I visited him, I can tell you! The councillor that Judy worked for told the papers about the wonderful work they had done so she and Jamesie were both interviewed. Judy, bless her heart, felt guilty because she was getting all the praise but I was glad to keep out of it. I was less offensive than Jamesie and a good deal cleaner but I still hadn’t agreed to leave my home. There were only a handful of us left holding up the grand schemes of the council for turning the area into an earthly paradise of thirty storey concrete slabs.
They started by bullyin’ us but, after the residents barricaded the next street and the Polis got involved, Judy was appointed to wheedle us out. The councillor involved was standing for parliament and the last thing he wanted was bad publicity.
Judy came in all flushed the day after she had her picture in the Bulletin with Jamesie and Councillor Grey. He was going to honour me with a visit the next day. She had told me about splittin’ up with Graham but she refused to go into details. I took another look at the picture in the paper and I thought: ‘Ah ha!’
When I started in the shop the owner seemed to me like god. He wasnae that much to look at and he had a wife and children but I thought he had an aura. When he started feelin’ me up in the stock room A began tae get ideas aboot him runnin’ away with me. Excuse me, my accent slips a wee bit when I’m thinking back to how naïve I was.
Anyway, I was beginnin’ to think that Judy had fallen for the same load o’ mince from the Councillor. As soon as I saw them together I knew I was right. She was fussin’ around him, introducin’ me and helpin him off wi’ his Crombie coat. He managed to give her bum a wee squeeze in the process.
“Oh Judy love, A forgot tae get biscuits. Take a ten bob note oot ma purse and run doon and get some, hen. Make sure their Beatties, noo.”
He took my hand in both of his and bent at the waist to talk directly to me. He was the Labour candidate for parliament but I think he had been takin’ classes in suckin’ up to voters.
“I may call you Elsie, mayn’t I? It was so good of you to help little Judy that I just had to come round and thank you myself. James is so happy and so pleased to tell the press about his new flat with a magnificent view of the Clyde and the Kilpatrick hills in the background.
“Now we must just get you your very own little butt and ben, as you call it, then our job will be almost done. I think in the circumstances we will let you have a choice of the wonderful views when you pick your flat.”
“I’m not goin’ into one of your monstrosities.”
“Far from being monstrosities, they’re the last word in modern living...”
“Do you live in one?”
“Well, no actually, bit A wid if A didnae hiv a pokey wee hoose in Milngavie.”
The first wee setback, I thought, and the carefully groomed accent slips. I’ll just give him another wee push.
“I’m not going into a High Rise and that’s flat.”
“Aye ye wull! There’ sich a thing as cumpulsiry purchase an’ A’ll make sure ye get the worst o’ it. Nae auld biddy’s goanny stop me getting’ intae the Hoose.”
The polite veneer peeled off awful easy; I was almost ashamed of how easy it was going to be.
“You can’t tear down this house. It’s part of the history of the old village of Govan and they’ll slap a preservation order on it.”
“Whit the hell are ye talkin’ aboot ye dementit auld bitch?”
So I told him that the house was built of stones quarried locally to build houses for the gaffers in the coal mines that the Corporation dug in the eighteenth century. The preservation folk would jump at the chance of saving this bit of history. His face had been purple with rage but I got his attention. He needed us out so he could put up more High Rises and he knew that he would be delayed if not totally stopped if I was right.
“How wid an auld womin like you know that?”
So I told him of my years of research in the Mitchell Library and I even showed him some of the notes and references I had made. I could see that I had convinced him. He was in a cleft stick: if he checked whether I was right the word would leak out; I was bettin’ that he wouldnae take the risk.
“A don’t believe ye want tae stay in this dump. There’s damp half way up the walls.” As he calmed down his accent began to recover. He had recognised that I was ready to negotiate and that was what he did best.
“I want to move all right but I’ve got my eye on a nice wee place in Old Kilpatrick.”
He smiled at that, thinking that I had overreached myself.
“I can’t help you, I’m afraid. Old Kilpatrick is West Dunbartonshire – out of my jurisdiction.”
“I thought I read that you and John Lawrence were right pally thegither – did A no’ read that he wanted you on the Rangers Board?”
He thought for a few minutes, striding about my wee front room, and then he asked if he could use the phone.
“Certainly, I keep it in a big red box at the street corner.”
So that’s where I’m off to when Judy comes to get me. It’s a lovely wee place in Lusset Glen. A two-bedroom, mid-terrace facin’ the Glen and backin’ onto nice bungalows. My pal, Jenny, moved there about three years ago and she was keen for me to join her.
When Judy got back with the biscuits Councillor Grey decided not to stay for tea. He had had enough of me, I think. As I helped him on with his coat I dusted off an invisible hair and whispered in his ear.
“And keep your manky hands off wee Judy or I’ll let your wife know. Her daddy’s the provost, is he no?”
I told him no lies but I did fail to mention that the stones had been rescued when the original cottages were demolished in 1916. This house was new when Willie bought it. It didnae have a damp course because the bampot that built it didnae know about such refinements.
Old Cartwright was a joiner and he took the old historical properties to cover a bad debt. He employed a big dimwit called George Turnbull to demolish them so he could sell the land. Cartwright’s daughter took a fancy to George’s muscles and she talked her Daddy into keeping him on to build four new houses using the old stones. George fancied himself as a builder but he couldnae have built a sandcastle.
By the time Willie was demobbed, Mr Turnbull was the boss and old man Cartwright was settled in a nice house in Turnberry right beside the golf course. The old man had run the business from his work bench but George got himself an office with carpets, a bar and a secretary to keep the books. By 1917 when George gathered the reins, men were in short supply so he employed a lassie as bookkeeper.
Ruth was the daughter of a minister, brought up strictly in the manse. Only his patriotism induced her father to let her out into the wicked world. She was tall and angular with a face like a horse and she was innocent of the ways of the world. Mr Turnbull soon convinced her that it was part of her duties to become his mistress.
It upset her because it seemed to be against the teaching of her father although he was so circumspect in his approach to the sins of men that she had no clear idea if what she and George were up to was the thing her daddy had warned her against. She needed advice so she turned her trusting equine countenance to Willie. He was a good-lookin’ bloke with a sympathetic smile that could pass for genuine; I suppose she could have picked someone worse.
He assured her that not only was it all right to carry on doing what she was doing with Mr Turnbull it would be better if she allowed him the same favours. Friday afternoons, George travelled down to Turnberry to spend the weekend with his wife and father in law. Willie let Ruth buy him his lunch then took her back to the office and taught her a few tricks that George did not know.
He saw no reason to stop when he was courting me and he continued to impregnate Ruth even after we were married. She liked Willie better than her boss, perhaps because she had to call him Mr Turnbull even when her knickers were round her ankles and he was exercising droit de seigneur.
When the four houses were almost complete, Willie surprised George in flagrante and demanded a special price for our home as the cost of his silence. When that deal was done without demur Willie went on to require a promotion to foreman. I think he was going to ask for an office but George began to growl so he let that go. I knew nothing about the deal until after Willie’s funeral although I guessed that something unethical had happened.
Ruth didn’t come to the funeral although I thought I caught a glimpse of her in the road when we turned in at that lovely gate to the Southern Necropolis. Two days later she knocked at my door and asked if she could clear her conscience. She had always been thin but now she looked gaunt although she was wearing a smart coat and expensive boots.
She had gone back to religion and was going to a kirk where the minister had explained everything. His wife had died a wee while before leaving him to look after eight weans under ten – I should think the woman was quite pleased to go. Anyway, the minister told Ruth that sex was all right. Reading between the lines it was especially all right between a widower and a spinster. That just left adultery with Willie on her conscience.
I gave her absolution and, after she left, I got thinking about confession. I’ve done some things in ma life that society disnae approve off. To be absolutely honest there’s a few things A’ve done that A don’t approve of masel’! I did the things so it’s only right that I should suffer for them. Seein’ Ruth goin’ away happy because I forgave her made me wonder.
I don’t intend to tell my story to the Daily Record – if they can’t publish Lady Chatterley they’ll have trouble with my memoirs! I just got to thinking that I had treated Myrna awful badly. I was relieved when she went to America as one of the first GI brides not because I didn’t love her but because I would have had to tell her things that would shock her.
We wrote to each other every week but they were mostly just chatty letters with funny wee stories about our lives. In all the years she’s lived in the States there’s only been a handful of letters that showed the emotions we were feeling at the time. Like me, she keeps things to herself.
When she left school, Willie got her a job in the typing pool at Cartwright’s. They were progressive employers, to give them their due, and they paid for her to go to Stowe College to evening classes. She was happy enough, I thought, until the war started. She had always been a Daddy’s girl and even after she left school she would sit on Willie’s lap and cuddle him. Then she suddenly announced that she was a Landgirl.
She went first to a forest near Fort Augustus but there was nothin’ to do after work and she hated it. In 1942 she got a move to Rosneath Home Farm right next door to the castle where there were Americans working for Eisenhower. Our Myrna had one of the first pairs of American knickers in Scotland – you know the kind: one Yank and they’re down! She used to write about her ‘dates’ as she called them but we knew things were serious when she brought a Master Sergeant to see us.
Willie didn’t like Yanks and he certainly didn’t warm to Hank although he managed to be civil to him. The lad was very polite, calling Willie ‘sir’ and me ‘ma’m’ and he was clearly besotted with Myrna.
“I reckoned we had about everything in Oklahoma where I come from, ma’m, but we got nothin’ that is near as pretty as your daughter.”
Whether Willie would ever have come round, I don’t know but the telegram from the War Office ended any chance of him being reconciled to the Yankee Invasion, as he called it. Our son, Johnny, had signed professional for Partick Thistle but he never got a game before he went to end his life in the Western Desert. Twenty-two years old, on the threshold of life and snuffed out by a Nazi bullet.
When Hank came round to offer his condolences, Willie tried to throttle him.
“Ah don’t want yer sympathy – Ah want you lyin’ dead in the desert and Johnny here winchin’ oor lassies instead o’ you bloody Yanks.”
That was the first time Willie ever swore in our house. He used to say that he heard enough bad language at work. Myrna took Hank away and she didn’t come back until Willie was in the Southern General after he collapsed in the pub. That became his home in the years following Johnny’s death. He only came back to the house to sleep – in the spare room, I should add.
Her and me started writing our weekly letters as soon as she went away with Hank. She married him and went back on the first ship carryin’ GI brides. I went to the pictures to see ‘Oklahoma’ so I thought Hank must be a cowboy but it turned out that his family owned oil wells. Hank Junior was born in 1945 and Vivian in 1947, the same year as they divorced. She moved to California with Marcus and gave birth to Wayne in 1951.
That marriage also ended in divorce and she was separated from her third husband when he had a heart attack and she moved back in to nurse him. It was while they were living apart that she came back to see Willie in hospital and she cut the visit short when her husband took ill. He was an estate agent, what they call a ‘realator’, and Myrna had taken over the business.
She made her peace with Willie but she and me only talked about his illness before she had to rush back to the States. Her Daddy didn’t approve of her lifestyle: marriage is for life, he used to say. That was a bit rich considering that he was fuckin’ Ruth before and after our honeymoon and went on having affairs until he was too ill. He was always smooth and handsome so he specialised in innocent wee lassies that were impressed by his style. Myrna was the only sixteen year old ever to work for Cartwright’s that he didnae try to seduce and, if I’m totally honest, I’m no’ that sure that his thoughts about her were always pure.
I felt terribly guilty. It’s all my fault, you see. Myrna is just like me and I might have been able to guide her if she had stayed at home. As it was, I was pleased to see the back of her because she looked so much like her father that it broke my heart to look at her. She couldn’t get over for Willie’s funeral but she arrived three months later after buryin’ her own man.
She was stayin’ in the Central Station Hotel and I was to have lunch with her but I arrived early so I could confess. The man at the desk knew me and A nearly had him greetin’ when I told him that I wanted to surprise my daughter. I left my wee overnight case with him and went up to her room.
She was pleased to see me and we chatted for a wee while about things. I saw the latest pictures of my grandchildren and heard all the things they were up to. Hank Junior has his own car – automobile, he calls it! He was on the football team, but it’s more like rugby, she told me. Instead of settling me, this family gossip was making me more nervous. When I began pacing the floor, Myrna stopped talking and looked at me:
“Spit it out, Mom. Have you got a new guy?” Then she paled and clutched my hands. “You’re not ill, are you? We have great doctors in the States. I’ll take you back with me.”
“We have great doctors here too. No, hen, A’m no’ ill, just apprehensive about what I have to say.
“Willie wasn’t faithful to me you know.”
“Everybody knew that Mom. He even got fresh with me. That’s why I left home.”
“I did wonder at the time so I told him to try his charm on that Shonah, your mate’s big sister. She had the hots for him – that’s why she was so nasty to you. It’s no’ his infidelity I want to tell you about – it’s mine!”
I started with my boss feelin’ me up, admitting that I liked it but I was too scared to let him go the whole way. After the honeymoon I went back for a month to help train a new girl in the stockroom, at least that’s what I told my new husband! After I gave Willie his breakfast and saw him off to work, I went to the shop where I spent the day, naked in bed with my boss in a wee flat above the stock room. It only lasted a week before his wife came into the shop askin’ for him. Rose sat her down and came into the stockroom to make her a cup of tea, she said, but really to come up the stair and warn us. He had been feelin’ Rose up as well and she was glad to see the back o’ me and take my place between the sheets.
While I was speakin’, Myrna had gone white then red, pushing both hands into her hair.
“So Johnny might not have been Dad’s?” I held my breath waiting for the next question. “Was that the only time you strayed?” I let my breath out with a ‘whoosh’. She had missed the point, but only for long enough to let me get through the rest of the ordeal.
“I didnae stray, as you call it, very often.”
“How often is that, Mom?”
“You’ll no’ mind the holiday in Broughty Ferry. You and Johnny used to play in the photographer’s studio while him and me were at it like rabbits in the darkroom.”
Then I told her about the penny-a-week insurance man that paid out his own pocket, I wasnae the only one, of course, and he was put in jail when he couldnae afford to pay all the free insurance he was offering and his bosses found out. He wasn’t a very good lover; it was always over too quick for me but then he was workin’ to a very tight schedule.
Alasdair at the Mitchell was a right Mummy’s boy. I was the first woman he had touched since his Mum stopped tuckin’ him in. He was like a fresh canvas for a painter and I was quite pleased with the job I made of him. His Mummy found him a wife and A’ll bet the wee lassie’s eyes lit up when he showed her what he could do in bed!
“I gave Jamesie a few wee treats after Helen died…”
“You don’t mean Uncle Jamesie?” Myrna interrupted.
“Well he’s no’ your real Uncle. Anyway that’s my lot. A strayed wi’ just six men.”
“You’ve only told me about five. Did you forget the sixth?”
“Oh no. A’ll never forget your father. He is the best, the love of my life.”
She had been pulling at her hair so that her perm was in tatters. Now she sat very still, her mouth open and her eyes fixed on mine.
“It says William Hart on my birth certificate.”
“After Johnny was born A had whit the doctor ca’ed post-natal depression. Really A wis jist feelin’ guilty that Willie wisnae the faither. I went to see Doctor Munro and he explained it all to me. He had just started in practice then and he was very patient with me. Nowadays they just fill you up wi’ Vallium but he listened to me.
“He used to take my hand and reassure me but one thing led to another and before either of us knew what was happening we became lovers. He was so gentle and caring but strong and virile at the same time. He was engaged and I was married but we lived in a bubble that burst one day when we forgot to lock the door into the waiting room and a polis came in to get the doctor to a man that had fell under a tram.
“With all the others it was just lust – I like doin’ things wi’ men – but with Hamish it’s true love.”
“No wonder he was so nice to me when we went to the surgery!”
“You look awful like him, you know. He saw it too – that’s why he grew a beard, so folk wouldn’t see the resemblance.”
“I should feel shattered but, do you know what? I’m relieved. I never liked my Daddy – Willie. He was always too smarmy and the way he looked at me when I was growing up made me squirm. I always felt real comfortable with Doctor Munro; I often wished he was my Daddy.”
She came across to me then and we hugged each other. The last time we had done that was 1939 when she went off to be a Landgirl. Twenty-three years without a hug is far too long. It was after twelve so we checked our faces and did what we could to sort out her hair. Then we went downstairs to the restaurant for lunch.
I filled in a lot of details that kept me blushing and she told me about her marriages and her affairs. It turned out that she was just as bad as me so I felt a lot better. By the time we were at the coffee stage we were grinnin’ at each other like old friends. I can’t tell you what a weight was lifted from my heart.
“Would you like to meet your father?” Myrna turned white and I thought for a minute she was goin’ to faint.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Well not at this second but I know where he will be at half past seven. He’s taking me to the ‘Five Past Eight’ show at the Alhambra. I told him to get three tickets.”
I had lost touch with Hamish Munro when he retired. I stayed with his practice but we were careful never to be alone. When Willie died he sent me a condolence card with a wee note saying he and his wife were well. Then when she died I sent him a letter and we discovered that we still felt the same for each other after I agreed to meet him at the Willow Tea Rooms.
The problem now was his wife’s sister. After her man died she moved in with them, nursed Hamish’s wife and stayed put. She kept an even closer eye on him than her sister had and she kept dropping hints about what he should do when he got over his loss. The BMA now had a club for retired doctors that it didn’t even know about: Hamish was able to make an overnight stay in Glasgow once a month to attend.
“He hates lyin’ but I convinced him that it should be true. It’s just the sort of club the BMA should open.”
When we got back to Myrna’s room I was worn out. The nervous tension had left me limp.
“I was dreadin’ this, you know, but you’ve taken it really calmly. Are you no’ shocked to find that your mother has been a scarlet woman?”
She gave me a big hug, and then she held my face in both her hands and kissed me on my brow.
“It’s just a tremendous relief to find that I’m not the only one in the family that’s screwed up her love life. I’ve been beating myself up all these years thinking that my morals were way below the standard you set me.”
We were recovering from an attack of giggles at that idea when there was a knock on the hotel room door. Myrna opened it to Hamish standing there with his face brick red and lookin’ ready to run away if she said ‘boo’ to him. Instead she threw her arms round his neck.
That was a month ago and now I’m sitting waitin’ for Judy to come and get me. She let herself in pushing a glaikit big lad ahead of her.
“This is Graham. The engagements on again. Can ye manage that tea chest on yer own, honey? We’ve time for a cuppa afore we go.” As usual I just waited until she stopped to breathe.
“I thought we might have a cup at the airport sittin’ watchin’ the planes.”
Hamish and me’s goin’ to California for a wee holiday. Judy’s takin’ me to my new house where he’s waitin’ for us, then on to the airport. When Myrna heard that we were playin’ hide and seek with Hamish’s sister in law she gave us a right mouthful.
“I’m forty this year. You two have put other people first for far too long. I’ll go and tell my new Aunt if you won’t.”
So we missed the ‘Five Past Eight’ show and drove down to face our dragon instead. I wouldnae say she was happy about it but she cheered up when we told her she could have the house. Myrna left at the end of the week but only after we promised to come to see her and the weans in California. We took her to the airport and while Hamish went off to buy her a quarter of mint imperials to sook to stop her ears poppin,’ she had the last word.
“It’s really lovely to see you two so much in love. You don’t have to tell me, but do you still have a physical relationship?”
“Aye, we still have a wee bit of sex but the truth is that passion is less important than compassion when you get to our time of life.”
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned six novels and many short stories. His three latest novels, The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace and Desert Ark, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned six novels and many short stories. His three latest novels, The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace and Desert Ark, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.