Authors: Sylvia Atkinson
“You said it,” Jean joked ducking out of the way of her sister’s playful swipe. Margaret wished her sister could stay forever but work called for both of them and there was always next Sunday.
* * * * *
Margaret’s mother knew from experience the difficulties
of this late stage of pregnancy.
Her husband viewed their daughter’s conduct as shameful. Marriage, anywhere but the Catholic Church, put Margaret’s immortal soul in danger. He didn’t know how to deal with the dictates of religion and the love of his child. His solution was to give his wife a few extra pounds ‘just in case’ and ask no questions.
* * * * *
Margaret displayed the best of the catch on a fishmonger’s slab in the shop window. Shining silver scaled herrings, white cod, and delicious oak-brown kippers lay alongside orange-crumbed dressed fish and bright yellow smoked haddock. There were few customers at this time of the morning. Her face flushed and a clean white apron concealing her shape, Margaret sat on a stool with her back to the door sorting money in orderly piles for the busy day ahead.
“Maggie.”
The women filleting the fish stopped, their quicksilver knives idle.
“Ma… Oh Ma, I’m so glad you’ve come.”
“Away you go lassie! We’ll mind the shop,” said a gruff
voiced woman, speaking for all of them.
The bare room Margaret called home was devoid of any comfort except for the clutter of well thumbed books by the bed. Jean witnessed her mother’s tears. Margaret was ashamed to be the cause.
The decent woman blamed herself for not preparing her daughters for the ways of the world, but she had married young and had little experience of life outside the home. Her husband was a good man but his refusal to have anything to do with their daughter distressed and exasperated her. She used the extra money and prudent savings from the boys’ wages to rent a small room above a friend’s shop. Her sons attended to the rest.
Margaret gave in her notice at the fish shop and went to the little room in Gorebridge. A bed with the cover crotched by her mother, a wooden cupboard, chair, open fire, sink and a jar of delicate snowdrops picked by Jean completed the cheerfully curtained room. The boys, now men, joshed with each other, and were duly told off by their mother. The work finished they sat squashed together on the bed eating broth, pressing Margaret into refilling her bowl more than once to feed the giant child she must be having. It was like old times and the following morning Margaret would have slept on, but Jean woke her with a letter from India.
“Well Maggie…” Jean said troubled by her sister’s obvious distress, “What does he have to say?”
Margaret dropped the letter on the bed, “He’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean not coming back?”
“Read for yourself…”
My
Dear
Margaret,
I
have
received
so
little
news
of
you.
Your
letter
saying
that
you
were
contemplating
leaving
Edinburgh
surprised
me.
I
assumed
that
you
had
abandoned
your
foolish
plans
and
returned
home
to
your
father.
My
father
is
no
more
and
all
duties
and
responsibilities
pass
to
me.
I
cannot
leave
India.
My
future
is
here.
You
must
remain
with
your
parents
until
our
child
is
born.
I
will
send
for
you
both
to
join
me,
meanwhile
I
have
instructed
the
bank
to
pay
your
allowance.
The brief business like letter with its audacious instructions riled Jean but her concern was for her sister, “What ever will you do?”
“I don’t know… I thought this was home.”
“It is. Maggie, stay with us. You’ve managed so far without him.”
“But it wasn’t meant to be forever. At least he’s sent instructions to the bank so I won’t be penniless and can repay mother.”
“The money doesn’t matter. It will break mother’s heart if you leave.”
But Jean sensed that Margaret had already made up her mind.
“You’re almost there hen… one last push.” The new born cry with its rush of love put an end to Margaret’s long labour. Laughing and crying she kissed the delicate face with its button nose and counted every tiny finger and toe. “Dinne worry lassie she’s all there” said the midwife, putting the baby to Margaret’s breast to quicken the milk.
Jean, who had been waiting on the draughty stairs with her hands clamped firmly over her ears, crept into the room. “Oh Maggie she’s gorgeous… What a mop of hair! She needs a brush already.”
“If you like you can hold her” Margaret said, wrapping a shawl tightly round her daughter.
“I don’t know if I dare. Maybe I’ll drop her,” but their mother couldn’t wait; cradling her grandchild she searched for a family resemblance.
“She’s awfi like you were Jean… except you hardly had any hair.”
“It’s still baby hair. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” Jean complained taking the baby.
“For goodness sake hold the bairn without squeezing the life out of her. Steady… steady… mind the heid!”
Lapsing into the language of home Jean said timorously, “I’m trying Ma but I’m awfi feared I’ll hurt her. Oh… she’s so soft. See Maggie, little blue veins on the rim of her forehead and eyelids. Open your eyes baby so I can see their colour.”
“They’ll be blue, silly” Margaret said with maternal authority. “All babies have blue eyes… then they change. Don’t they ma?” Her mother didn’t know if this applied to babies with Indian fathers.
“Well I want her to have blue Riley eyes like ours!”
“Stop it you two! You’re no bairns!” said their mother for once glad of their bickering. “Jean, it’s no a doll you’re holding. Tuck in the shawl… Maggie, you have to give the wee girl a name.”
“Ma It doesn’t matter what I choose. Ben will decide.”
“Goodness knows when that will be! We must call her something!”
“Jean, you choose.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes but don’t be upset when Ben changes it.”
Jean didn’t think it would happen. He was gone for ever. “I’d like to call her after me, but one Jean’s enough. Let’s call her Jessie. We’ll share the same initial.”
Jessie slept throughout their deliberations. Indeed she slept on through the procession of adoring uncles and Mary, who had long since charitably forgiven past differences.
A parcel containing a pink, lacy matinee coat arrived from Nan, Margaret’s eldest sister. Her husband Davey was doing well as a cabinet maker in Colchester. Their daughter Sheila was a year old. The enclosed note invited Margaret to stay. The girls would be company for each other in the coming years.
Margaret guessed from her mother’s happy singing that while she rested Jessie was regularly taken to her grandfather. She had no idea that he paid the rent and all her expenses.
* * * * *
A telegram arrived from Ben. The baby was to be named Pavia. Most people complimented Margaret on the unusual choice. Jean preferred Jessie. Eventually Pavia ceased to be a novelty, acknowledged by Ben and cherished by her Scottish family.
Letters began arriving regularly from India. Margaret read out some of the everyday happenings. Jean was not impressed, calculating that her brother-in-law was deviously preparing Margaret to join him.
Pavia was quite a handful, crawling madly at nine months; making a dash for the stairs at every opportunity. “I’ll be glad when she can walk.” Margaret said, retrieving her daughter for the umpteenth time. Jean, who had done her share, agreed, but their mother advised that then they’d really have to be on their toes.
* * * * *
Jean spent the lunch hour combing the grand Edinburgh stores for a teddy bear. They were all the rage and outrageously expensive but the boys chipped in to buy one for Pavia’s first birthday. The toddler slept with the golden bear chewing its ears, refusing to be parted from it.
* * * * *
A package arrived containing the necessary papers for Margaret’s passage to India. They were to sail from Southampton in four weeks. “We’re going to your daddy… across the sea on a big ship.” She said excitedly to Pavia.
“Train…” Pavia said as if she was trying to correct her.
“No darling that was to Aunt Nan’s but we’ll go on the train to catch the ship.” Margaret was having enough trouble explaining to a child. She didn’t know how to broach it with her mother.
Pavia did it for her that afternoon in infant drawl. Margaret filled in the rest. The details of the proposed journey escaped Margaret’s mother, who couldn’t understand her daughter’s faith in a man who had technically abandoned her. She hurried home to enlist her husband in putting a stop to this rash adventure.
A heartbroken Jean was sent by their father to bring Margaret and Pavia home. There was no mention of the past but a great deal of discussion surrounding the wisdom of travelling unaccompanied to a disease ridden country so far away. The consensus was that Margaret and Pavia remain in Scotland. The family would continue their support and perhaps in the future, Margaret would be able to resume studying. It was a safe sensible solution but held no appeal for Margaret. Travelling so far was exciting; yearning to be with her husband she didn’t see India through their eyes.
* * * * *
Ben sent a money draft and suggestions for clothes to be bought for the voyage. The weeks flew past in a plethora of entreaties and fraught packing. Pavia, fretful and miserable, clung to her granny who travelled with them to Southampton. All too soon they were on the dockside exchanging kisses and inadequate words, “Maggie I canny bear to let you go but your duty is with your husband… Pavia deserves to be with her faither. You will have to make a different life but… Oh how I’ll miss you both. I canny stop worrying… Write as soon as you get there to let us know you’re safe. I’ll pray for you… God only knows if I’ll see you again.”
Margaret looked over the side of the huge liner. Far below on the quayside carnival crowds waved; among them, her mother, a small still figure, searched the lines of passengers high above. Margaret called to her but the sound was whisked away on the wind. She moved Pavia from astride her hip holding her above the rail. Seeing her granny she almost slipped from Margaret’s grasp and had to be pulled to safety.
In those seconds Margaret lost sight of her mother but the festive quay was awash with a sea of identical bobbing black hats. Then there she was, arms wide, pleading to the empty air. Margaret mouthed hopelessly, “I love you” while the gangplank rattled on board and the vessel’s deep resounding horn signalled the end of any change of mind.
She hurried aft. The spectators on shore were beginning
to drift homeward but the lone figure of her mother, dwarfed by cranes and pulleys, remained staring at the ever widening strip of water tearing them apart.
The ship, guided by sturdy tugs, headed for the open sea.
Pavia whimpered. A fellow first class passenger suggested the nanny be sent for to take the child below, for the wind was getting up and they’d catch their death of cold.
The cabin steward was waiting but Margaret sent him away. The enormity of the decision to leave Scotland and its effect on her mother laid bare by the terrible parting, brought on a deep sense of foreboding. Lying on the bunk, resting her frozen cheek against Pavia’s, mother and daughter fell asleep on tear-sodden pillows.
* * * * *
The practicalities of life on board took over. There were cocktail parties, dinners in the opulent dining room, deck quoits, bridge, and a host of entertainment. Margaret was the sole passenger in first class without a nanny or companion but she wore the appropriate evening dress, cocktail and deck outfits. Her manners were perfect, and she cultivated an air of understated wealth.
The ship passed through the Mediterranean docking at ports in countries that had once jumped out from the pages of Margaret’s school books. She didn’t go ashore, preferring to spend the voyage with Pavia, who, shepherded by the steward, navigated the decks like a seasoned sailor.