Missus came to my room on the first morning wanting to know why I hadn’t come down for work. I knew she was there, stood in the doorway asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer or even look at her, I just turned my face to the wall and lay there shivering. Later on, other people loomed up beside me like visions. One was Jessie the milkmaid, sent by missus (as Jessie made very plain she would not have come on my account alone). She gave me water to drink and a cold cloth for my head, these acts of kindness somewhat diminished by the resentful look on her phiz. I fell asleep again until I was awoken by a noise and opened my eyes Jesus Murphy there was a beak-nosed man in a dark suit peering under my bed. Then he took my wrist and held it, which was a comfort right enough but it seemed to me that he was late for an appointment for he kept staring at his watch and sure after about a minute did he not go away again, all this without ever once having looked me in the face or spoke to me. I fell asleep, hoping he was not just some mad bucko that had wandered in off the road. (As it turned out he was in fact the doctor, McGregor-Robertson, summoned by missus.)
Over the course of the next few days missus herself came and went from my room, she brought me broth, she cut my hair, she slathered cool cloths on my head, but would I speak to her, would I chook. I kept my potato trap shut and my eyes closed, I did not even want the sight of her. A few times, I heard her voice below in the yard as she spoke to someone, Hector or a Curdle twin. And at night there was the creak of the stairs as she and the husband climbed to their separate chambers. Every time I thought of what she had wrote in that blasted book the pain grabbed my heart and squeezed it tight, leaving me dizzy and short of breath.
On the afternoon of the 3rd day I felt a little better (although I now suspect I was only delirious). It occurred to me that I would leave Castle Haivers, forget about wages and what I was due, just walk out let her struggle on without me, slap it into her. I even began to pack my duds, but was interrupted in this task by the sound of somebody on the stairs. Thinking it might be
HER,
I stuffed my bundle in the cupboard and lit back into bed. But it was only Jessie, bringing more broth and not at all happy as she had been instructed to empty my poe. (It contained nought of substance but of course she made a right Holy Show about keeping it at arms length as she put it out the door.) f hen she turned to me, hands on hips.
“Her majesty wants tae know have you goat all what ye need.”
“Where is she?” I asked. “What’s she doing?”
Jessie gave me the dead-eye. Then she says, with imperial scorn, “She’s downstairs wi” her skirts up, sitting on a jelly.“
Now an ample sufficiency of strange things had happened since I arrived at Castle Haivers, but I did not think for one minute that this was true about missus, it was only Jessies way of letting me know that she held neither missus nor me in any great esteem and that by the same token, she had no intention of answering my every silly question.
Once Jessie had went hurpling off I found I had no strength to finish packing, so I crawled shivering between the sheets.
Over and over, I kept picturing the missus lowering herself onto a jelly. Except in my head it was not a deliberate undertaking (as Jessie had implied) but an accident, in which the frock that missus was wearing—a lovely white one—got ruined by stains of red jelly, the whole thing witnessed by a gathering of local nobs, to her great mortification. I am sorry to say that I found comfort in this daydream.
Now I am not going to pretend that during this period of laying there in bed I did not think about my past. Since I had got to Castle Haivers I had mostly tried to forget about it. But reading all what missus had wrote about me in her book brought it back and I was hankering after the old days with Mr. Levy. I am not exactly champing at the bit to tell about it. But I suppose now is as good a time as any because unless I do, some of what follows will not make sense.
So here goes.
Oh for dear sake just get on with it.
My Mr. Levy was a modest man and I know he would not like me to be saying “Mr. Levy this’ and ‘Mr. Levy that” all over the place in a document which may be read by others but if he is looking down from wherever he might be and can see the page I hope that he will be secretly pleased. What can I say about the months I spent with him at Crown House in Hyndland except that for me, they were a time of solace, and I hope for poor Mr. Levy too. I say poor Mr. Levy because (I’m sure he won’t mind me saying) he was old and before he died he suffered terrible from a constriction of his bowel and most days I had to rub his belly until the hand was dropping off me, it helped him go. But it was a small chore and I was happy to do it. In fact I had never been happier! Crown House was a very grand villa with four floors. I had my own room with a white marble mantelpiece and a fire in it every day, and I washed in hot water and could take whatever I fancied from the pantry no need to ask permission, cakes, chicken, wine, pies, gingerbread, you name it, I had never seen a cupboard with so much food. Mr. Levy even gave me a watch to tell the time. He was a private man, weary of society and did not like everyone to know his business. And although he was rich, he hated the place to be crawling with servants and had over the years let them all go except one boy Jim that had been there a few months when I arrived.
This Jim was about my age with dark red hair and watchful eyes beneath fair brows and I soon saw that he would not let me interfere much with the running of the house. To tell the truth, Mr. Levys eyesight was none too good and as a result his standards of housekeeping and so on was a little lax. Jim knew a good thing when he seen one. He had an easy life in Crown House and was worried that I might take his place, if he got dismissed as well. But as time went by and it became clear that Jim was needed and would not get his notice, we even grew to be friends. And as I pointed out one afternoon (we was playing chucky stones against the back area wall, which was our habit while Mr. Levy took his nap) everybody had his purpose in life. I did things for Mr. Levy that Jim could not do, Jim fetched whatever was needed by us, and Mr. Levy paid for it all. Simple.
Now my Mr. Levy was a bit like missus, he was an educator and wanted me to know my ABC. Every day of the week he would sit me down for a lesson. First of all he taught me the alphabet by using the first letters of all the foul words he could think of and he even taught me several I’d never even heard of before. (In actual fact I think he made some of them up, but he always claimed they was genuine curses in one language or another.) Next we put these letters together to make words and after that there was no stopping me, Mr. Levy said I was sharp as a tack. We had soon graduated to long difficult words like “duplicity‘ ”reticule’ and “sententious’ (now that I come to think of it I don’t actually know what that last one means but I believe I can
spell
it right).
And once my lesson was over, we would go to Mr. Levys study together and look at his fossils—he had a great old collection—and in the evening we would sit by the fire and sing songs and sometimes when we sang a sad song it brought a tear to my Mr. Levys eye. I think he may have been a lonely man, I don’t know. He had no wife or children, nor never had either and no other family, as far as I knew. I was his hearts companion.
“Oh Nuzzler,” he would say.
I forgot to mention, that was his pet name for me, and while he was taking his pleasure he liked me to smack him and tell him that he was a bad old donkey. “Donkey you have been bad,” I had to say, “But Nuzzler loves you just the same.” But there was no harm in it, for I never did smack him with any force.
(I apologise if I have put that bluntly. I thought it better to get it over with.)
Where was I?
“Oh Nuzzler,” he would say. “What will become of us?” And then he would make me promise not to leave the house much in case of the gossipmongers, his neighbours. Which I was happy to do. In 8 months I stepped out only a handful of times, and always discreetly by the back door. And I never went near the Gallowgate either, where I used to live, the furthest I got across town was Miss Doigs of West George Street,
Modiste,
at which establishment I was fitted for a new frock at Mr. Levys expense (the satin one with blue bows and lace). I made no other visits and received no visitors. And any time I was out I kept my eyes peeled but I never seen anybody that I knew.
However. All good things come to an end.
I am trying to think of a polite way of putting it but perhaps blunt is best. My Mr. Levy died on the pisspot. I think it was the strain that killed him, his heart gave out, from too much pushing. God bless him, all he forced out was a leathery pellet the size of a hazelnut. It was the first thing I seen that morning when I found him keeled over in his room. There it was, in the bottom of the poe. I had knocked on his door for ages but there was not a peep out him, so in I went. The poor old soul was laying on the Turkey rug, all twisted and buck naked he was, the two bones of his arse pointing at me.
“Mr. Levy, sir,” I says but there was no reply.
I walked round to look at him. His eyes were open and he had this 1/2 surprised expression on his face like he’d just remembered something. Not something important like “GOD SAVE US! I FORGOT TO GET MARRIED AND HAVE BABIES!” but a small thing like Ah! So that’s where I left my tobacco.“ Who can say what really was the last thought crossed his mind. I hope it was a good one.
I put my hand to his mouth just to see if he was breathing, but he wasn’t. Then I touched his face with the backs of my two fingers. He was still warm. I tried to rouse him, thinking he might come back to life, but it was no good. So I put my bare foot next to his, to see the difference in size. Then I lifted his arm and had a look at his oxter. The hairs in there weren’t even white. If all you could see was his oxter you might almost have mistook him for a younger man. I lay down and put my face in there. He smelled like soup, with just a hint of vinegar. I lay like that for I don’t know how long. I didn’t cry but I think I might have fell into a Trance, for I had a premonition that my days at Crown House, Hyndland was over. And then I got up and covered him with a sheet for I didn’t want them to find him naked.
One last thing before I sent for the doctor, I made sure to preserve Mr. Levys last act. I found a small velvet pouch in a drawer and went over to the pisspot. I took his pellet between my finger and thumb and dropped it into the pouch. Then I put the pouch in my pocket and shoved the poe back under the bed.
I don’t know why I did that apart from I didn’t want anyone to be staring at his last act, because it was his private matter and nobody’s business but his own.
Then I called downstairs to Jim to fetch the doctor.
Such a gull was I that I believed it might be possible to live on there in the house but as it turned out, Mr. Levy did have some family after all, a brother that lived at Candleriggs, him that had wrote to missus. This brother Samuel didn’t need a hearts companion. He had a wife and children and servants of his own. He and Mr. Levy hadn’t spoke for years but it was him that inherited Mr. Levys wealth, in the absence of a will. The brother came to Crown House the day after the funeral, at the crack of dawn, and spent a long time talking to the neighbours and their servants. Jim had made great claims for me as the housekeeper but once it was established that I wasn’t really a housekeeper as such (Mr. Levy was right—they were gossipmongers), both me and Jim was turned out into the street, not even a sniff of a wage or a character between us. Poor Jim was obliged to go back to his mothers in Govan, and after we parted on Byres Road I took my bundle (the scutting brother would not even believe that the smart new box Mr. Levy had bought me was mine) and went and sat in the West End Park, staring into space. All I had in the world was my clothes, my watch, two shillings I had found in an old coat under the stairs, six Parma violets and a pellet of human waste in a velvet pouch. But I never held my circumstances against my Mr. Levy, and still don’t. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have known he was going to die and leave me without a penny.
As the day went on, I realised I had nowhere else to go except back to the Gallowgate. I left the park and hoofed it all the way along Dumbarton Road and Argyle Street. Never have so few miles been walked so reluctantly. I dragged my heels and it was mid-morning by the time I reached the Cross. It was Wednesday, the place was going like a fair because of market. This was the very spot where Mr. Levy had first found me all those months previous.
You see he had started off the same as anybody else—that is to say as a paying customer. And before our first time he’d sat me down and tellt me he was a Jewish man and did I mind? I said it didn’t matter if he was a Hindoo or an Eskimaux, as long as he paid what he owed. Then I told him I was Irish and did he mind that? Which made him laugh. And so it was that a couple of nights a week he took to strolling by my patch and off we would go together to a room above a wobble and do what had to be done. Afterwards, he liked me to sit on his knee while I rolled cigarettes for him and sometimes he fed me chocolate drops and once he even brought a pineapple which I had never tasted before but took a great liking to. Oh, he had his foibles but what man does not? All in all, he was a good gentleman with a kind heart.
One evening, after this had been going on several weeks, Mr. Levy tellt me he needed a housekeeper. But more than that, he said, what he really wanted was a “hearts companion‘ for his dotage. And he had chose me for the job!
Now, by this time I will admit I was heartily sick of life which is a terrible thing to say at the age of 13 or thereabouts. Having to go with every man jack no matter how foul or drunk or mad they was and making only a few bob here and there and then having to hand over the lions share. I didn’t have to think very hard. I tellt Mr. Levy straight away that I would be delighted to be his hearts companion.
But of course, it was not up to me to decide.