Silver Linings (9 page)

The morning after the deal was struck, Jock was surprised when he was invited up into the boardroom. As he sat drinking tea from a china cup and nibbling a Rich Tea biscuit, he accepted that he had not been summoned to be sacked – far from it. Instead it seemed Frank, the yard manager, had managed to convince the board that from now on Jock was the one who should be delegated to deal with all industrial-relations matters that arose within the yard – especially if Johnny Anderson, a man Jock respected and admired, was the mouthpiece.

*

Kitty was still recounting the reminiscences of what had happened to the family in the aftermath of her grandfather’s death to Laura when the bus they were travelling on turned off Great Junction Street and into Bonnington Road. Immediately both girls jumped up and alighted from the bus as soon as it drew up at the official stop. They then literally sprinted back along Great Junction Street. This haste was not because there were bombs falling from the sky on top of them, nor was there a fire anywhere. No, it was so that they could catch the start of the big picture being shown in the State cinema.

‘You are sure,’ Laura gasped, ‘that it is
The Private Life of Henry VIII
that’s showing tonight? My mum says it was on a year ago.’

‘That’s right, but it is so good they are showing it again. And if Connie is to be believed Charles Laughton is just wonderful in the part of the king.’

The lassies were fully engrossed in the film, which had just got to the part where Anne Boleyn was about to have her head parted from her neck, when the dreaded wail of the sirens sounded.

‘W-w-w-what will we do?’ Laura stuttered.

Suddenly a voice boomed out from the front of the auditorium. ‘As there is now an air raid being carried out, anyone wishing to leave the cinema should do so quietly as those remaining do not wish to have their attention distracted.’

Suddenly Laura found herself being yanked out of her seat. ‘Come on,’ hissed Kitty. ‘Let’s go. Old Mrs Dickson and Rosebud … what I mean is they’ll be trapped up the stair. Oh dear, they won’t be able to get themselves out and down into the shelter.’ As she scurried off, Kitty wailed, ‘How the devil will I live with myself if Rosebud is blown to bits?’

The two girls were now racing along Great Junction Street when through gasps Laura managed to splutter, ‘Why are we doing a Powderhall sprint for someone you say you hate?’

Kitty drew up abruptly, for she now needed to cross over Constitution Street and a racing fire engine was about to block the path in front of her.

‘What now?’ asked Laura.

Snorting and gasping, Kitty replied, ‘We’ll have to run all the way home because the buses stop when bombs are falling. You just have no idea how bad things are here in Edinburgh. Never know when the planes are coming and what they are going to drop on you. Honestly, Laura, people have been killed here … and not just my granddad.’

Laura let out a derisive cackle. ‘Kitty, believe me, you’re living in a protected zone here compared to Coventry!’

‘Aye, that’ll be right.’

Kitty had just finished speaking when Laura grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her around to face her full-on. ‘Oh, Kitty, I couldn’t take it any more. I thought I was living on borrowed time. Every night we had to endure wave after wave of bombers. Deafening noises – not only of the bombs exploding, buildings collapsing, glass shattering, fire engines howling, and ambulances speeding, but of people weeping and wailing, buried in rubble, yet still crying out for help. It got so bad that I spent my time just waiting to be pulverised. And so … last week I decided that if I was going to be blown to smithereens I wanted it to happen at home beside my ain folk.’

‘You’re home for good?’ Kitty almost sang. Laura nodded. Kitty, somewhat bewildered, went on, ‘But what about you wanting to work in a munitions factory to help the war effort?’

Laura nodded. ‘Well, with my experience, and now that there is a munitions factory at Craigmillar, I can get a job there.’

The road in front of them was now clear so Kitty burst into a trot again and as Laura came alongside her she said, ‘I know you won’t understand, Kitty, because you have such an easy life here compared with what I had down in Coventry …’

‘Easy life!’ Kitty exploded. ‘Right enough. I mean I get a long lie in bed until the back of five o’clock every morning and sometimes I’m still on my feet until ten at night. In that time I’ve shopped, cleaned, cooked and looked after Rosebud. It is true that I get an afternoon to myself on a Wednesday when Mrs Dickson looks after Rosebud and all I have to do in order to get that is take Mrs Dickson’s and everybody else’s turn of scrubbing the main entry and passageway. And see when you were saying that you thought I really hated Rosebud … Well now she’s out of nappies it’s not quite hate, just a sort of plain resentment. Believe me, she sure changed everything for me. But as I promised my dying mum that I would look after her, and I can’t break that promise, I just have to get on with being saddled with her.’

Two dogfighting aircraft began to buzz above their heads and the girls jumped with fright. Kitty was the first to recover. Propelling Laura forward, she mumbled, ‘And knowing my mum, I just wouldn’t dare to have Rosebud join her in pieces so let’s forget the aeroplanes and just keep running.’

An hour later, after Kitty had helped Mrs Dickson downstairs and into her own house, Laura and Kitty were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table. ‘Laura,’ Kitty tentatively began, ‘I’m pleased you’ve come home. I’ve missed you so. I need a pal. I’m surrounded here by old married women – not one of them is under twenty-seven.’ Kitty was now looking down sadly at her work-worn hands.

‘Are you saying, Kitty, that the silver lining your granny always talks about is that with me coming home from Coventry you and I can be young and carefree again?’

‘Don’t know about carefree,’ Kitty replied dolefully as she slipped her hand towards Laura, who covered it with hers, ‘but if we are going to go out of this life early, we most certainly will go out singing and dancing. Welcome home, Laura.’ Kitty then inhaled and hunched her shoulders, before leaning into Laura and whispering, ‘But do tell me about … what I mean is, see when you were going on about … well, you know what … was all that just bluster … What I am trying to ask is are you still able to be married in white?’

Laura started to giggle. ‘Well, mainly white with maybe a couple of very tiny blue bows on the side.’

Both girls suddenly jumped apart when they heard the outside door open and someone call, ‘Cooee, it’s only me.’

Laura made a grab for Kitty’s hand. ‘Who’s me?’

Before Kitty could answer Connie entered with a covered bowl in her hand. On seeing Laura she swiftly about-turned and was about to leave when Kitty called out, ‘It’s fine, Connie. It’s just my pal Laura who’s done a runner from Coventry.’

Connie turned back and squinted at Laura. Grinning, she laid the bowl down on the table. ‘Sorry about that, Laura love, but I have to be so careful.’

‘About what?’

Kitty had now stretched over and lifted the bowl and when she took the cover off she squealed with delight. ‘Oh, it’s full of butter. Quick, Laura, get the bread out of the bin and start toasting it. Oh, there’s nothing in the world that tastes as good as hot buttered toast when you’re hungry.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Laura. ‘But that bowl is holding at least two months’ ration for your entire family! And where exactly did it come from?’

Closing the door, Connie looked about the kitchen. She seemed to be checking that there was no one else in the room. Satisfied that they were not being spied upon, she whispered to Laura, ‘It came from New Zealand and it should have made its way to the cold store in Tower Place, but it couldn’t find its way there in the blackout. Luckily my Uncle Hamish – he’s the policeman on the dock gate – found it, and as he quite rightly says, we must waste nothing now we are at war, so he sneaked it to me on my way out.’

Looking directly at Kitty with an accusing scowl Laura announced, ‘That’s dealing in the black market.’

‘No it’s no,’ responded Connie. ‘No money changed hands and if Uncle Hamish hadn’t rescued that tin and its pal they would have been washed into the water. And would that not have been a shocking waste?’

The tea was now made, the three slices of bread toasted and Kitty was already slapping them with lashings of butter when Connie pulled out a chair and pushed Laura down on it. ‘Here, Laura, just eat and drink, and if your conscience is bothering you that much, turn Roman Catholic and confess it! But right now let’s just enjoy ourselves.’

The aroma of the hot toast was now circulating the kitchen and as it wafted up Laura’s nose she replied hesitantly, ‘All right, but just a little slice then. And I’m only relenting because I don’t wish to appear to be holier than you two.’

Johnny Anderson and Jock Weldon had decided to have a New Year pint together and in a pub that wasn’t a favourite of the men from the shipyards. Everybody knew that Johnny and Jock now had a good working relationship but, as they were supposed to be representing opposite sides when negotiating the yards’ industrial relationships, it wasn’t in Johnny’s interest, as he thought, to be seen to be in the management’s pocket.

The Links Tavern, a men-only bar, situated next to Noble’s the Chemist at the foot of Restalrig Road, was their secret choice of venue. This pub was mainly frequented by white-collar and artisan workers, which meant you could have an uninterrupted, discreet discussion in peace and quiet – just what Johnny and Jock needed.

Once they were seated in a booth, Jock was the first to lift his pint and, as he winked and cocked his head towards Johnny, he said, ‘Here’s tae us, Johnny lad.’

‘Aye,’ replied Johnny, lifting his glass to take a gulp. ‘Here’s wishing you all the best for 1942, Jock. And I’m damned sure now that America’s in the war we might get the victory we need – quicker.’

Jock nodded. ‘Talking of America, Johnny, we still have to refit four of our share of the fifty Great War destroyers they gave us.’

‘Gave us?’ exploded Johnny. ‘Naw. Naw, they gave us bugger all – they’re only on “lease lend”. See when the blasted war is over we’ll hae to pay for them.’ A derisive chuckle escaped Johnny before he continued. ‘Can you actually believe that our government has agreed to pay them – stump up good money – for ships that they would have had to send to the breaker yards?’

‘Aye, but admit it, Johnny, getting them sorted out and action-ready has helped the sea battles and’ – Jock now stopped to wipe the beer froth from his mouth – ‘kept quite a few of your men in overtime.’

‘True, but don’t forget that the most important work has been the building and launching of the new ships like the prefabricated frigates, the cheap and quick-to-build nasty corvettes …’

Jock nodded before butting in with, ‘And we couldn’t have built so many if we’d not had the structural steelwork done by engineering firms all over the country. A real British team effort it has been.’

‘Aye, and it’s the team effort of us all paying the extortionate higher income tax on our wages that is helping finance the blooming conflict.’

‘True, Johnny, but you get your wee certificate to say that they will pay you back with interest after it’s all over.’

‘Interest when it’s all over? Try telling that to my Kitty, who is forever begging for a rise in the housekeeping. See since that Laura came back …’

As the glow emanating from the fire lessened, Laura was finding it difficult to see the pages of the Littlewoods Home catalogue. ‘Look, Kitty, if you want me to buy something from this book then you’re going to have to light the gaslight.’

‘I will once I’ve drawn the blackouts. My dad will go daft if I get another warning from the air-raid wardens.’

‘Honestly, Kitty, I think that young warden keeps coming up here to say there’s a light showing because he fancies you.’

‘That right? Well he’s in for a dizzy. Here, Laura,’ Kitty said, ‘Connie was saying I should ask you to take the catalogue into the factory as I might get some orders from the lassies you work with.’

‘Could do, but you’d have to sell them some clothing coupons first.’

‘Talking of selling coupons, what’s the going rate?’

‘Shilling each. And, Kitty, I wish I had a hundred.’

‘And what would you do with a hundred?’

‘Sell some, and with the money I make I’d get myself all toshed up for the Yanks coming.’

‘Connie was telling me that she’d heard they’ll be here next week.’ Kitty made a loud slurping sound before adding, ‘And she also said that they are overpaid, over-sexed and God help some stupid lassies when they get over here.’ She paused. ‘Mind you, none of that will make any difference to me.’

‘Why not? You’ll soon be eighteen.’

‘Aye and I’m still saddled with a snotty-nosed three-year-old, who’s going on ninety, dragging at my skirts. Besides, my dad would go apoplectic if I was to walk off with a GI.’

‘Kitty, you have to tell him that you’re entitled to a life of your own.’

‘Can’t do that – unless of course I want to end that life of my own.’

‘Talking of ending a life – wait till I tell you about what has happened at my work.’

The curtains were now drawn and Kitty had added some railway sleeper logs to the fire. Sitting down she pulled Rosebud on to her knee before she said, ‘Right, we’re all blacked out and these “found” logs might stink but they’ll at least keep us warm. Right, Laura, it’s time to dish the dirt.’

‘Well,’ Laura began slowly as she savoured the moment, ‘it seems, no it is a fact, that a young lassie was going round the doors in Craigmillar asking questions about what was going on in the munitions factory.’

‘Scots lassie?’

‘No, she had an Irish accent or so they say. But back to the story … Anyway one of the things they are good at in Craigmillar is sticking the gither. You know, no rising to the bait and certainly no giving anybody sneaking about any information. Anyway, one old ex-army smart alec phoned the polis and the lassie was arrested.’

‘Arrested for asking questions?’