Authors: Victoria Hendry
But as we drove past the ploughed fields, I could hardly remember what had made me take Hannes into my life. He was the figure born from the trees in the rainstorm: Mrs MacDougall’s bogeyman, my childish secret against Jeff. He was my humanity and my betrayal. Now I had made my brother unhappy. The child kicked in my womb, and I put my hand over it. Duncan flicked me a look out of the corner of his eye and stared back at the road.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ he said, snapping the reins so the horse trotted on faster.
‘Maybe later. Does Mother feel the same as you now?’
‘I don’t know. She never mentions him. Dad still thinks he was a friend of Jeff’s. I don’t like lies, Aggie.’
‘I am sorry, Duncan,’ I said, and touched his sleeve, but he didn’t put an arm around my shoulder as he usually did and I knew I wasn’t forgiven.
‘I feel wrong inside,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to be with my friends when they are home on leave. Can you imagine how that sits with me? I buy them a drink and I feel like there is so much space between us that I am reaching the glass across the Irish Channel to them, the channel I took a killer across; a man who is fighting for our destruction.’
‘Don’t exaggerate. You didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t ask to go to war. You were helping me.’
‘Aye, but the price is too high. I might as well have signed up as a National Socialist.’
‘He was a farmer, Duncan.’
‘He is a Nazi.’
‘Duncan, please.’
He looked at me. ‘It is worse than you think, Ag. The Ghillie told me he had an odd story to tell, the story of a hybrid animal he saw early one morning. It had a thick, brown coat, a white head and a strange, guttural cry, and the most curious thing about it was: it was walking along the forest path with a native species, so friendly that they had touched their wee noses together. And later he had seen this animal caught in a net at the harbour, and although it was dangerous, it hadn’t been killed. On the contrary, it had been set free. How could I explain a story like that, he asked, because it had left him scratching his head for many a day.’
I remembered the figure with the gun, slipping into the trees.
‘You are not safe here, Ag. It was a warning.’
‘He wouldn’t say anything against you,’ I said.
‘He’s not letting it drop. I buy him a drink when I see him at the bar to keep him sweet, and he raises his glass each time and says, “To the Divine Mystery of God’s wonderful creation”. He’s a big drinker and his tongue gets looser as the evening goes on.’
‘Everyone kens he’s got mair wind than sense.’
‘You shouldn’t underestimate him. Don’t you remember you turned him down the summer you met Jeff? You are free now. If you refused him again, he might try to hurt you.’
‘Duncan, he is twenty years aulder than me. He got the message the first time.’
‘All men think they are God’s gift to women, Aggie. The face they see in the mirror is not the face you see.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I am not entirely unkissed. Elaine is keen to get mairrit.’
‘I meant, are you safe?’
‘Likely no’, although he has no grudge against me. It wasn’t me he proposed to, but, like I said, he talks when he drinks and he drinks when he’s upset. I don’t want you here, Aggie.’
‘But I want to see Mother.’
‘Are you sure she wants to see you?’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘The truth.’
I didn’t know which truth he meant. He stopped the cart. ‘Choose, Aggie. You can stay and remind us of your lie every day or you can go back and work in the nursery. Stop the talk before it gets going.’
‘Redeem myself?’
‘Aye, if you like.’
‘A Land Girl growing tomatoes out of season. Do you think that is enough?’
‘It will have to be.’
I took the reins from him and turned the cart. I felt like the road no longer connected me to home, but only to Duncan’s anger, which smouldered in him, fed by the Ghillie’s suspicions, the wireless barking on about the war, his friends’ tragedies, the telegrams brought to his neighbours through silent streets. He didn’t want me to stay. There was no future here. The past was getting in the way. ‘Tell Mother, and Dad, I was asking for them.’
He nodded, but I knew he would just say I hadn’t come after all, to spare Dad.
The road back to the station was dreich. Duncan’s face was unrelenting. He never looked at me or spoke again. I think he was crying. He kept turning his face away and swallowing hard. He bought me a ticket and left me beside my bag in the waiting room. As I sat there I hated Scotland, the Scotland that had killed Jeff, imprisoned Douglas and left me alone. I’d tried to help someone from another place and she, Scotland, had stolen my family. She seemed less like a great beauty, silver rivers of hair trailing over her misty gown, and more like a hag of petrified rock. I thought of the women they had burned as witches on the dead volcano in Edinburgh, or drowned in the loch at its feet; sacrificing them on the castle rock as if their red blood could run down the cliff face into the heart of the earth and bring it back to life. I thought of the bloody quarters of Wallace’s body enshrined in memory at the foot of his tower; the monument hoisting his dream up into the sky, only to smother it in cloud, or throw it up bright against the light as another folly, far above the people who still
struggled
below. Scotland ate her own children on winter nights as they dreamed, but each new generation still loved her. She was an unkind parent, a deceiver, a monster; she was a lover, an enchantress, a dream.
May and my delivery came too soon. The early summer had passed in a slow harvest of picking tomatoes. Jim only allowed me to fill small trugs as I got bigger, and finally he let me sit by the kettle with my feet up. He claimed it was only my tea that kept them all going, and the Ministry inspectors happy on their lengthy visits. I rarely put the wireless on. Hitler was fighting in Russia, and the long reports of Allied troop movements in Africa reminded me of Douglas’ injured poet friend who loved the Cuillins. There were pictures in Jim’s paper of Douglas, too: in a kilt, haranguing voters on Kirkcaldy High Street. He wanted to give Scotland dominion status like Canada. I folded the page over and didn’t read on. I sang to the baby inside me to drown out the sound of the world, but he must have guessed it was not a good place because in the end he joined us only slowly, and it was a long, walking labour.
That first day of my pains, I wandered about the kitchen and sitting room, unable to sit down or get comfortable. It was worse overnight and I lay propped up on pillows, trying to get some sleep, but the contractions came on as a deep ache and kept waking me up. I knelt on my hands and knees, but that didn’t help. Mrs Ogilvie came in and rubbed my back with camphorated oil, and Jim came in to say a Gaelic blessing. She bundled him out the door. It was midday before she sent him
for Mrs Winning. The contractions were closer together now and the pain had increased. I began to cry and I wished my mother was there. By teatime, they let me hang onto the stone lintel of the mantelpiece to push down, and placed folded
towels
at my feet. I felt the baby’s head turn a corner deep in my belly and then slide downwards. He was born at 6pm and they laid me in bed with him on my chest. He had fuzzy, blond hair and smacked his tiny lips together, casting round for my breast. I could have run up Dumyat and held him up to the stars. Mrs Winning looked at him, swaddled in his shawl, and said, ‘What a wee dote. He’s been here before.’
Mother never replied to my telegram telling her of
little
Dougie’s birth. If she had winkled the whole story out of Duncan, perhaps she was afraid the Ghillie would use what he knew to press his suit, if I did go home. I no longer had the protection of my marriage. And if I refused him, he might destroy them, too, so I stayed on at Laurelhill through the long years of the war. I was the sick sheep she had isolated to
protect
the flock, and it made me anxious. Dougie slept in my bed, or in the bottom drawer from my dresser. I tried not to think of it as a tiny coffin when its brass handles rattled as he cried. I would snatch him up to my breast and hold him close, kissing his hair while he fed. We were alone on the raft of my bed in the chaos that tried to pull itself up the country on steel fingers. Death flew in the air and swam in the sea, and I cried for a world Dougie knew only as an illusion; the peace that stretched just as far as the fringes of his shawl, but he brought me joy as he grew.
He took his first steps on the tenth of April, 1944, holding onto my fingers. Jim put him in the wheelbarrow to celebrate and ran round the yard with Mrs O shouting, ‘Slow down, before you do yourselves a mischief.’ When I rescued him, he kicked his wee legs against me and shouted, ‘Again, again,’ and I wished there was more for him, that the laughter could be shared with my own family, too. Each inch he grew carried us further from them. We were becoming strangers to each other
with every month that passed, and it made me sad, as if we could never go back to what we had. Once, I thought I saw Duncan at the end of the road to the nursery, but I couldn’t be sure. He was wearing a coat I didn’t recognise, and didn’t turn round when I called his name. I arrived back at the farm in tears and, as he did every time I wilted, Jim announced it was time to rally the troops and took us to tea in his favourite café on the High Street, or down the Forth in his boat to Fallin. He always packed a picnic on those summer trips, and we ate fruit from the greenhouses and drank flasks of tea until we were full. We would lie in a solemn row on a blanket, like sardines in a can, and snooze until it was time to go home. ‘Always row back with the tide,’ Jim would say with a wink, starting the motor on the boat.
As a special treat in May, Jim gave me and Mrs Ogilvie a lift to Perth. He was off to see his supplier about onion sets and a new tomato called Jubilee that had come out the year before. He dropped us by the Tay, which flows through the centre of the town, and we walked along the river’s edge to the South Inch park. The wide, green space felt fresh and
welcoming
with broad paths lined with benches. Mrs O spread out a rug, laid out our spice cake and sponge fingers on a tea towel, and lay back in the weak sun with a sigh. ‘You would never guess there was a war on up here,’ she said. ‘It’s like visiting the past. A summer Saturday afternoon like all the others we ever knew, and all the ones we thought we’d see, at least before that madman Hitler and his henchmen started clumping all over the place with their bloody flags.’
I looked at the solid, stone buildings surrounding our little square of blanket, our temporary heaven, and I treasured our friendship. Dougie’s wee fist held onto the edge of my blouse. He made little cooing noises, like a dove, as he drank milky tea from his bottle, and his eyes followed a dog chasing a bald tennis ball.
‘How are we ever to keep that darling boy safe in this
madness
?’ asked Mrs O, turning on her side to gaze at him. Dougie
tried to sit up in the basket of my crossed legs. ‘Let me burp him, Agnes,’ she said. ‘It’s the closest I am going to get to
having
children.’
The beautiful mask of her face smiled, but a traitor tear slid to the corner of her eye. She settled Dougie on the edge of her lap and leant him forward to rub his back in gentle circles. He closed his eyes and burped. ‘Better?’ she asked him, smiling down into his face and handing him a rusk.
‘Mind your dress,’ I said, passing her a napkin. ‘There could still be handsome men in Perth, roving forestry workers in search of a wife. Sponge finger?’
She shook her head. ‘Even if they form an orderly queue, once was enough for me. I have got used to being Stirling’s only divorcee and anyway, after the war, if it ever ends, I can reinvent myself as a glamorous war widow. No shame in that.’ She wiped Dougie’s mouth. ‘On the other hand, why bother hiding the truth? Everything is changing.’
‘Let’s hope it’s for the better,’ I said, lifting Dougie from her and tucking him into his pram. ‘Shall we get you that cloth you fancied?’
She pulled her utility tokens out of her pocket and smiled. ‘Lead on, Macduff,’ she said, and we wandered over the grass to South Street. Her pleasure in the material at the
haberdasher
’s didn’t last long, and with much dark muttering about the low thread count, she selected a length of sky-blue cotton for a new dress. ‘I might even get a romper suit for his majesty out of the scraps,’ she said, waving a hand at Dougie, who was now fast asleep with a bubble unpopped between his lips.
There was no sign of Jim at the ILP Hall where we had arranged to meet, and after ten minutes fat raindrops began to fall from the sky, which had deepened to a battleship grey. The drops jumped off the river surface in tiny explosions of white, and water began to rush along the gutter and gurgle in the drains. Mrs O dragged me into the hall, saying, ‘I am not an SNP supporter, but I certainly didn’t sign up for Perth’s only monsoon.’
To my horror, their annual conference was in full swing. There was the same Saltire on the table and Douglas, dressed in a kilt, was speaking from the podium, just as he did in my memory. I leant against the back wall to get out of sight, but, after taking sixpence admission and issuing us with tickets, a very kindly, old lady led us to seats in the back row. She waved her hand to get the others already seated to move along, and we sat down. Mrs O pulled the pram alongside her in the aisle. There was no escape. I slid down as far as possible in my seat. My palms were damp. ‘Are you all right, Agnes?’ she asked.
I sat up. ‘Yes, fine.’ She followed my gaze to the podium.
‘Is that the famous Grant?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘How fascinating,’ she whispered. ‘Tall.’ And she raised her painted eyebrows in an arch. ‘Positively larger than life.’
‘Stop it,’ I said, afraid the faithful might start turning round to see who was talking, and draw his attention to us.
Douglas hadn’t changed. His voice was as appealing as ever.
‘It does not take a genius,’ he boomed, ‘to realise that the only reason Scots lassies are forced to go south and work in munitions factories in England, is that the Westminster
government
refuses to invest in Scottish industrial infrastructure. We are not short of land on which to build, but they are short of the will with which to do it.’
The audience cheered. I felt uncannily that Jeff might be sitting next to me, a ghostly supporter rising to his feet, and I kept my eyes straight ahead, afraid to look in case I would see him. Douglas held up his hands for silence. ‘And so I say to any young women affected by this, who are isolated from those they love – money, or no money – get on a train and come home. Give the ticket inspector your name and contact the Scottish National Party at our headquarters in Glasgow for assistance as soon as you can. Don’t let the fear of fines or imprisonment stop you. This is a matter of principle.’
There was a murmur of approval. Someone at the side of the stage waved a bundle of leaflets. ‘Well reminded,’ said
Douglas. ‘Leaflets on this subject, and others, are available at the back of the hall on your way out.’ He took a sip of water. ‘Again, dear friends, in order to break the stranglehold Westminster has on Scottish affairs, and in furtherance of our primary aim, which is self-governance, we have written to the Prime Ministers of independent states in the Commonwealth to ask them to support our cause. Has Canada been the poorer since independence from Britain in 1867? No!’ he shouted into the silence. ‘Ask yourself this. If the Commonwealth is a happy family of self-governing states, but Scotland is the only one without self-governance, then are we not soft in the head? Are we the saftest o’ the family to continue as we are?’ There was a loud cheer and someone shouted, ‘Never.’
I felt the old tiredness wash over me. I thought we were already independent within the union. I wondered if they would drag a Bruce or a Wallace out onto the stage again to wave a broad sword at our neighbour England, while Germany slid across the world in an army of tanks.
‘We need to find Jim, Mrs O,’ I whispered.
‘I’m just beginning to enjoy it,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling something patriotic stirring in my breast.’ She gazed over at Douglas. ‘Hasn’t that brave man been to prison again? I saw a leaflet about it.’
‘Please,’ I said, and the spell was broken.
We crept out and stood under a nearby tree that still dripped with water, although the rain had passed. Everything was washed clean. Mrs O shoogled the pram. I looked up from straightening Dougie’s covers to see Douglas strolling over to us. His head was bent over his pipe, which he was struggling to light.
‘Agnes,’ he said, ‘I thought it was you. And this is?’ He smiled at Mrs O, who almost dropped him a curtsey.
‘This is Mrs Ogilvie. She runs Laurelhill Nursery with Jim. Mrs O, Douglas Grant.’
She reached over the pram to shake his hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’
‘What a bonny, wee soul,’ Douglas said, looking at the baby, and he reached into his jacket pocket to slip some coins into the foot of the pram. ‘Got to handsel the bairn with silver,’ he said. ‘We don’t want him to be poor when he grows up.’
‘Thank you, Mr Grant,’ said Mrs O, with a dazzling smile.
He drew in deeply on his pipe and let the smoke out through his nose like a lazy dragon. ‘Well, my apologies, ladies, but I can’t stop. One of the Clydeside apprentices is up next. He has been striking against Bevin’s ballot-conscription into the coalmines. It is imperialism run amok,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon to you, and remember to come and see us in Glasgow, Agnes.’
Mrs O was still gazing after him when Jim pulled up in his van, and tooted his horn. ‘Sorry, girls,’ he shouted, from the window. ‘Got a flat tyre just outside Perth. All ship-shape now, thanks to a passing farmer.’ He jumped out to open the door. ‘Just move those leaflets over. Some SNP stuff the seedsman forced on me. Wants to know how many Scottish casualties there are in the field. All very hush-hush, according to him. Now, let’s get the wee man home.’ He lifted Dougie up with a kiss. ‘He’ll have to grow among the onions for now.’
I wish I had known then that it would only be a year until the end of the war. I danced on VE Day in May 1945 at the Miner’s Institute, and remembered Raphael, who claimed he loved me in long letters. When he went missing in action just a month later, I regretted the loss of a friend, but my heart didn’t stop as it had when Jeff died, or when Douglas kissed his Bella. Those scars had healed over and, if I didn’t think about the past, then the future looked like a land I could inhabit. Mr Lamont told me in a letter that Douglas was looking for a new university job in Classics, but he didn’t hold out much hope of success for a man imprisoned as a conscientious objector; the Scots had such long memories. A man called Bruce Watson had become the new Chairman of the SNP, but I didn’t care. They belonged to a world I had left.
It was June 1946 before I received Professor Schramml’s letter saying he was in Edinburgh and would like to meet the
woman who had made Jeff so happy. I had rented out the flat to a man from a London company, which had advertised that it was re-establishing its provincial offices in Edinburgh, and I stayed on at Laurelhill. Anyway, I couldn’t have left even if I’d wanted to because of the Standstill Order. The
government
was worried we would all abandon the farms and rush off to look for better wages, but I was happy where I was. My pay was going to go up to sixty shillings a week, and Jim’s to eighty. Falkland Terrace seemed somehow remote, and I assumed that Mrs MacDougall had indeed kept everything in the Professor’s flat ship-shape against the day he would return. ‘No one should think we keep a dirty house in Scotland,’ she’d once said, as she rubbed at the banister on the stair with
beeswax
and a duster made out of an old pair of flannel bloomers.