The Tangling of the Web
Read The Tangling of the Web Online
Authors: Millie Gray
Also available by Millie Gray
CRYSTAL’S SONG
IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN
IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
EIGHTEEN COUPER STREET
In memory of my dear sister and friend, Rena McKinnon,
who in her lifetime achieved the impossible.
Special thanks go to:
Celia Baird and my sister, Mary Gillon, for their continuing encouragement and support.
Gordon Booth, who set me on the path of novel-writing and continues to advise me.
Ian Grant for sharing his memories of being a young and raw police constable who pounded the Shore beat in Leith forty years ago.
The team at my publishers Black & White and in particular Karyn Millar for her meticulous editing and publicist Paul Eckersley for his ever-willing assistance.
1
1955
Her stiletto heels echoed shrilly on the stone stairway, causing her to realise that the noise may irritate her mother, and that was the last thing she wished to do. Bending down to remove the offending footwear, she breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. Leaning on the wall for support, she reluctantly recalled that as a child she had often dreamt of and longed for this day. Relief seeped in when she also remembered that as she had matured the respectability that she was sure would come when she was able to say truthfully that her mother was dead had lost its importance.
In contrast, today the worry for Sally was just how she and Paddy Doyle, her mother’s husband, were going to resist her mother’s insistent pleas for them to put an end to her intolerable suffering. Sally sighed as she acknowledged that the agony of the pancreatic cancer had turned her formidable mother into a pitiful, grovelling wraith.
Tiptoeing towards the door of her mother’s tenement home in Iona Street, Sally was convinced that she would always stand fast in her belief that to end someone’s life, no matter the circumstances, was murder. Nonetheless she knew Paddy Doyle would have no such qualms. Descended from a deported Irish criminal, he had been born and brought up in the Australian bush. This harsh upbringing had resulted in him being one of life’s survivors who would crush anybody or anything that got in his way. Sally snorted as she was forced to grudgingly acknowledge that when he
had married her mother he had also bestowed on her the respectability that she had long yearned for. But the price had been high – much too high, in Sally’s opinion.
Forgetting that she was trying to make sure she did not disturb her mother with any undue noise, she sniffed loudly as she asked herself,
What kind of mother would treat her children the way Peggy had done? Her neglect and cruelty had been especially meted out to Josie, Peter and me.
Sally shrugged and sighed before going on
. Surely a cuckoo was more caring of her young?
Her thoughts were now fully consumed with memories of Peter, her beloved brother, and all he had endured. Always when she reminisced about the days of their childhood, anger bubbled up inside her and silent tears cascaded down.
LEITH 1932
The sheriff looked from the slight, terrified, fair-haired fourteen-year-old Peter over to his mother. Whereas the boy was cowed, the mother was indomitable. He already knew from personal experience that she was a very handsome woman, but he had also perceived today that she lacked any maternal instincts or warmth towards her son.
Shuffling the papers in front of him, he sighed before saying, ‘Peter Mack, you have been honest enough to confess to the stealing of two Scotch pies from the bakery in Dickson Street, and I accept that you did this because you were hungry so I am going to sentence you to be detained …’
Before the sheriff could continue, Peggy jumped to her feet. ‘No, sir, I don’t wish him jailed – give him several
strokes of the birch!’
Around the court there were several loud intakes of breath. No feeling mother could wish her child to be treated in such a barbaric manner. It was true that up to the 1920s birching was regularly carried out in the police station in Leith, but a more enlightened view was now being taken on this practice and very seldom was any young person subjected to such cruelty unless the parents specifically requested it.
Sucking in his ample wobbling cheeks, the justice hesitated. It was true that most parents who pleaded for the birch instead of a custodial sentence did so because they were living on or beneath the breadline. This meant that if the boy was earning, the loss of his wages would further impoverish the family. In Peter Mack’s case his mother was a well-known accommodating Leith lady who plied her trade in Edinburgh. The lady was therefore supported by her many male admirers, which, he grudgingly admitted, included himself and several of his colleagues who served on the bench. This truth meant she would not starve even if her son was jailed.
Peter shifted nervously from one foot to the other as he waited for his fate to be announced. He was resigned to a good birching, where he would be stripped to the waist, tied by his hands and feet to a wooden bench and whipped by a six-foot-tall police officer with a five-sectioned birch whip. He gave an involuntary shudder when he realised this would mean that the skin on his back would be beaten black and blue and even torn from his bones. Shaking, he remembered that Jimmy Young, his pal, had told him to scream from the first lash. Peter knew he must do that because Jimmy had been lashed the year before and had decided not let out a whimper until he realised that his resistance to crying out only meant the constable would lay it on heavier when he struck the next lash. Peter now swallowed loudly as terror engulfed him, and all he could do was to pray that the sheriff would be lenient and not say ten or even twenty lashes.
The clock ticked slowly by until the sheriff cleared his throat and said, ‘Peter Mack, I accept that your mother left you and your sister for six days last week knowing full well that neither of you had any means of support.’ He now stared directly at Peggy, who raised her finger and wagged it surreptitiously against her bosom to indicate that the judge, no matter how much he was prepared to pay, would never, ever enjoy her favours again. ‘But a petty crime you have admitted to,’ the sheriff continued, ‘and as stealing cannot be tolerated, no matter the circumstances, I therefore sentence you …’ He hesitated. All in the court could now see he was reluctant to finish his judgement. Nonetheless, after a few seconds he continued, ‘… to five lashes of the birch.’ Peter gasped and buckled at the knees when he heard the leniency of the sentence and was further surprised to hear the judge wasn’t quite finished with his deliberations. No, like Pontius Pilate he wished to wash his hands of the disgraceful judgement. So, staring directly at Peggy, he added, ‘As requested by your loving mother!’
Immediately Peter was released into Peggy’s custody. But as was normal with her she wished not to be inconvenienced any further by this matter. So before going home she took him round to the police station for the punishment to be summarily carried out by the duty constable.
Peter never spoke to anyone, even Sally, about the thrashing he received at his mother’s behest, but it was etched forever into his memory.
The tall, burly policeman who carried out the sentence did not appear to be a cruel man. In fact, when he tied
Peter’s wrists and ankles to the table contraption he asked in a concerned voice, ‘Not too tight I hope, son?’ Peter, who was choking with terror, could only nod his head to indicate that the tethers weren’t cutting into his skin. The officer then went ahead preparing Peter for the assault. However, before the beating began the policeman lifted the birch from another table and whacked the air with it three times. The whipping sounds petrified Peter and the constable asked again if he was feeling well enough for him to proceed.
What,
he wondered,
would be the point of saying, no, I’m shit scared, but Mister if I don’t let you go ahead today then the beating I’ll get from my mammy will be even worse than anything you do to me.
Peter would always remember his screams as the birch tore at his flesh. The sounds were so high-pitched he couldn’t believe they had been uttered by himself. Eventually relief overwhelmed him when the officer, with disgust, he thought, inflicted his last stroke. The constable then forcibly threw the birch as far away from himself as he could. The man then bent down and untied the inconsolable Peter’s hands and feet, but before giving him some water to drink, the man gently sponged the blood from Peter’s back. ‘Your mammy didn’t wait for you, son,’ he then confided with a compassion that was beyond Peter’s understanding. ‘Said, she did, that you’ve to make your own way home to Ferrier Street.’
Peter staggered to his feet and inhaled deeply. He couldn’t believe that breathing in could cause him so much agony. Picking up his shirt, he tried to put it on but could only drape it over his shoulders. Unsteadily, he then made his way out of the police station.
Once on the street, scalding tears cascaded down his face, but he made no attempt to wipe them away as every step he took was torturous, and he was sure that it was just a matter of time until he was on his knees.
After reeling and swaying his way over to Leith Links, he was glad when at last he was able to grip a rusty garden railing to support himself. Raising his head, he was pleased to see an unoccupied small bench nearby. Sinking onto the seat, he closed his eyes. ‘Oh Mammy,’ he muttered to himself as the shock of what had happened engulfed him. Ferrier Street seemed miles away.
Four years later, Peggy further betrayed Peter and Sally when Paddy Doyle insisted she abandon her elder bastard children before he would marry her. She didn’t even think twice before agreeing to the unnatural ultimatum.
When Sally and Peter arrived home from work that day they were shocked when they were told to gather up their belongings and leave. All that their mother added was that their eviction from their family home was with immediate effect. They tried to argue, but they knew it was useless. How could their welfare be important to their mother, Peggy Mack, when she wished, yet again, to share her bed with another man? This time her lover had said he would marry her but had laid down conditions. So all Peter and Sally could do was pack up and leave Iona Street, where they had recently been rehoused, without even being offered any sustenance.
Sally, who never forgot that Peter had been birched because he had stolen the pies to feed her, deeply regretted that they both were now homeless.
Staggering down the stairs with their worldly possession in some paper carrier bags, she felt an overwhelming desire to protect Peter. However, it seemed Peter felt he should be looking after her and she choked back her tears when he said, ‘Never mind. And don’t you get upset, Sally. I promise I’ll find us something.’
That was what he thought would happen, but sixteen-year-old Sally knew she had a quicker solution to their plight. ‘Peter,’ she said, as she laid her two carrier bags at her feet, ‘it’s just a wee five-minute walk from here down to Halmyre Street. How about we go there?’
‘Halmyre Street?’ exclaimed Peter. ‘Look, Sally, we have to stay realistic. How could we persuade the railway people that we are entitled to one of their hooses?’
‘No. What I mean is until we get something else how about I ask Harry Stuart or his widowed mother if we could bunk in with them for a night or two? Then at the weekend we can look for digs.’
‘But why would the Stuarts help us?’
Sally blushed before stammering, ‘Because … Oh Peter, Harry fancies me and wants to marry me.’
‘Marry you? But you’re just a bairn – only sixteen. Oh God, you’re no in the family way?’
‘Of course not. I’m not like Mammy. I’m respectable. Probably take after my father.’ Sally halted before drawling longingly, ‘Whoever he was.’