The Tangling of the Web (2 page)

Peter’s bags were now lying beside Sally’s on the pavement. On looking up to the heavens for an answer, he was rewarded with a shower of hailstones that tore into his skin, reminding him of a birch cutting into his back. Sighing, he picked up the bags and uttered, ‘Come on then. Let’s see if Harry’s mother has any Christian charity in her.’

Flora Stuart was one of those women who could be held up as the epitome of a mother. Like Sally, she wasn’t much more than five feet in height; however, she did differ from slim Sally in that she resembled a warm, round dumpling. One of her other assets was her ever-smiling face, which beamed a welcome to Sally and Peter when she opened the door to them.

‘Come away in then,’ Flora chuckled as she stood aside to let them enter. ‘And my, look at you – you’re fair drookit,’ she continued, picking up a towel from the back of a chair and offering it to Sally.

Murmuring a ‘thank you’, Sally firstly rubbed her hair and face with the towel before handing it to Peter. ‘Mrs Stuart,’ Sally continued, whilst wringing her hands together and indicating with a nod of her head, ‘this here is my brother Peter and … and … and …’

‘Sure, Sally, why are you so … how can I put it … oh aye, grovelling? Am I a monster or something that you’re scared of?’

Sinking down onto a chair, Sally shook her head and wept. ‘It’s just … Oh Peter, can you say?’

Handing the towel back to Flora, Peter began, ‘It’s just that we need shelter for the night. I promise you that tomorrow I’ll try and find us some digs.’

‘Shelter? But your mother’s house in Iona Street is bigger than mine here.’

Peter hung his head. His mother’s promiscuity had always been a sore embarrassment to him and he just couldn’t form the words that would explain why Sally and he were in such a predicament.

Sensing Peter’s dilemma, Sally swallowed hard before saying, ‘Our mammy’s getting hitched to Paddy Doyle … whom I wouldn’t spit on if he was on fire,’ she hissed before going on. ‘And part of the marriage settlement – so it would seem …’ Sally stopped to sniff in deeply and purse her lips, ‘… is that Peter and I are no longer welcome in our
family
home.’

Shaking her head from side to side, Flora looked about her home. Sure, she had three rooms and each had a bed in it. Flora herself slept in the bed recess in the living room; Harry, her only son, had the box room that was really just a large walk-in cupboard; and the other room was occupied by her nephew, Sweet William. ‘Look,’ she began, ‘there’s no a problem with me putting you up, Sally. After all, there’s not much of you so you could bunk in with me.’ She stopped to have a hearty chuckle. ‘And would that not be suiting my Harry,’ she continued, slapping her hands on her stomach, which sent a cloud of flour rising from her apron. ‘But as to your brother here … Well, my Harry is a big boy, a very big boy, and with there not really being enough room for him in his single bed there is no way I could offer to let you share with him.’

Peter and Sally looked about the room and their eyes stopped when they looked past the open door and into the full-sized bedroom of the house.

Running her right hand over her hair before patting the chignon at the back of her head, Flora sighed before uttering, ‘Sweet William, my sister’s lad, sleeps in there. And okay, he has a double bed to himself, but Peter I couldn’t let you sleep …’ Flora gulped before hurriedly going on. ‘Surely you know why he’s called Sweet William?’

An uneasy silence fell in the room and was only broken when Flora said, ‘Look. That’s the bread fully raised again so I can get it in the oven.’ Once the bread was safely in the oven cooking, Flora flopped down onto a chair. It then quickly became evident to Sally and Peter that she was thinking, and they were surprised when she jumped up and ran into the bedroom. ‘But that’s the answer,’ she called back. ‘William does nights at the train station, so Peter, if you could be up and out of the bed by half past six then it would work.’

‘Just for tonight?’ Peter tentatively asked.

‘No. Until you get better accommodation than I can offer. Mind you, you will both have to pay digs and I will give William a wee reduction, a very wee reduction, to his dues.’

A satisfied smile came to Flora’s face. Sally too was laughing because Flora would always help anyone in distress, but somehow her generosity had a habit of paying Flora well – very well. Was that not what Harry was continually saying about his mum: that always she was looking forward to a brighter future, which she was convinced her ingenious schemes would provide?

Without really speaking to anyone other than herself, Flora whispered, ‘Saving up I am for one of those grand main-door houses in Easter Road.’ She now stopped to do a jig around the table while adding, ‘You know the rooms are that big you could hold a ceilidh in any one of them and not have to turn any of your generous kin folk away!’

The only consolation Sally had about Peter’s life was her knowledge that the three years before he had gone off to war he had spent at Flora Stuart’s house. Flora’s was a home in the true sense of the word. A place where Peter was always welcomed and well fed.

By the time Sally had stopped reminiscing, she had been standing at the door of her mother’s house for ten minutes. She knew she had to enter, but she really wanted to flee. All she required to do was turn the key that was always in the lock and she would be in, but still that small action was beyond her. A small voice from deep inside her asked,
Are you going to stand here all night? What are you waiting for – some courage?
Before she could answer herself she became aware of someone approaching. Quickly Sally turned and found herself face to face with Luke, her stepbrother.

Today his silent stance was no different than what it always was – sneering and supercilious. ‘Just catching my breath,’ Sally murmured, thinking,
Why do I allow this upstart to unnerve me? So he thinks he knows who his father is. So what? Wonder what he’ll do if he ever finds out that Mammy took Paddy, like all the rest of her conquests, for a hurl?
She shrugged.
But wouldn’t that mean he could honestly say that he wasn’t the offspring of a monster like Paddy Doyle?
Shaking her head from side to side, she silently agreed,
If that is the case then it would be best for me to keep mum.

Once the door was opened, Luke and Sally advanced along the hallway. Sally had intended to go straight to her mother’s bedroom, but with Luke following so closely at her back she proceeded past the closed door and into the living room. Immediately she was confronted by her sisters – hysterical Josie and distraught Daisy.

‘Where have you been?’ Josie demanded of Sally. ‘I’ve been calling out for you.’

‘Calm yourself, Josie. Are you saying Mum has passed … ?’

‘She will be any minute now,’ Josie sniffled. ‘Oh Sally,’ she continued as she wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand, ‘Paddy threw us all out of the bedroom a minute ago and he said, “Enough is enough,” and I don’t think he meant us all weeping and wailing.’

Sally turned, pushed past Luke and raced in the direction of the bedroom.

Before throwing open the door, Sally breathed in deeply. Stepping into the room, she exhaled and balked at the smell of her mother’s decaying flesh. Nonetheless, she had to lay aside her revulsion when the sight of Paddy bending over her mother with a pillow in his hand sent shock waves through her.

Although she was no physical match for Paddy, she immediately kicked off her shoes and slammed the door shut. Jumping up onto the bed, she began to wrestle the pillow from him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spat through gritted teeth.

‘It’s what she wants – an end to it all.’

Sally looked down at her emaciated mother and noted that she weakly nodded. Then, through laboured breathing, Peggy murmured, ‘But first I wanted … to say … to … you … that I’m … sorry.’

‘Look, Mum, you don’t require to apologise to me. It was all so long ago and I’m doing fine now.’

Peggy was now plucking at the bed covers and again she tried to speak, though this time it was only audible to Sally. ‘Not you, Sally. You see, the pain has been so bad those last few days I wondered if anyone else in this world had ever suffered like me.’ Peggy, her face now awash with tears, paused. ‘And,’ she began again, ‘I got to thinking … about my … Peter.’ Her breath was now coming in short pants and she paused before sobbing out, ‘And it’s him, my wee canny laddie, who I wronged, that I need … for … give … ness … from.’ Peggy tried to grasp Sally’s hand before pleading, ‘Are you positive …ly sure … he was never … ?’

She couldn’t go on. She didn’t need to. Sally knew exactly what was troubling her. Peter, Sally’s beloved Peter, had only been twenty-one when war broke out and of course he was one of the first to volunteer. Memories came crashing into Sally’s mind. The emotional waving him off at the Waverley train station. His embarkation leaves before going to France and then El Alamein. The arrival of the impersonal telegram stating he was missing – presumed dead! Heartless Peggy, their mother, saying, ‘Look, Sally, don’t waste your tears. At least he has done the right thing and died. It would have been worse if he, like some others, had come back a cripple requiring looking after for the rest of his life.’ Peggy’s callous remarks had made Sally hysterical, but even her heart-rending sobs had had no effect on Peggy, who blundered on. ‘And Sally, have you forgotten that it was thanks to Dunkirk that your precious brother survived another three years, which is more than most soldiers do?’ Finally Sally recalled his precious letters. He never specifically asked about his mother. All he would write was, ‘How is the grand duchess getting on?’ Sally never mentioned their mother in her letters back to Peter. She didn’t want to lie to him; nor did she wish to say that Peggy, as usual, was uninterested in his welfare.
Why,
she asked herself
, was it that me and all my siblings yearned to be loved and recognised by our mother – this woman who is now reduced, through pain, to the pathetic ugly creature who could only beg for compassion and an end to her agony. I wish,
thought Sally,
I had been able to snuff out all the suffering your indifference and cruelty caused.

* * *

Six agonising minutes elapsed before Paddy and Sally came back into the living room. Sinking down on a chair, Sally mumbled through her tears, ‘It’s all over. She’s gone.’

‘You let him kill her!’ Luke accused.

Shaking her head, Sally looked up and, staring directly into Paddy’s eyes, she croaked, ‘No. It was her time to go and she slipped away. Just gave up the ghost, she did.’

Paddy nodded and mouthed a discreet ‘thank you’ to Sally.

The gesture, however, was noted by Josie, Daisy and Luke, who looked at one another before Luke spat, ‘And I hope you think the doctor who will be signing her death certificate will swallow that.’ Without uttering another word, he raced from the room and into his mother’s bedroom. Bitter sobs racked him as he gazed down on Peggy’s now peaceful countenance. Picking up her hand, he kissed it gently before silently whispering, ‘I know my dad did for you, Mum. I also know that he’ll get away with it because that liar, your apparently upright and honest daughter Sally, is his witness.’ His tears were now raining profusely down onto his mother’s face as he falteringly added, ‘I know, Mum, that I’m too young just now to get vengeance for you, but I promise you that one day I’ll make him and that traitor Sally pay!’

* * *

Flora, seated at the table, was supposedly reading the newspaper, but in reality her thoughts were on her daughter-in-law, Sally, whose mother had finally passed away the day before. She gave a sly chuckle as she looked about the elegant living room in Elgin Terrace. She remembered vividly how her dream had been to save up enough from the rental of her croft in Culloden for a deposit on a ground-floor flat in Easter Road, but then Sally and her brother Peter had entered her life. Her dreams then became Sally’s property, and when this Elgin Terrace main-door house with the added attraction of having some basement rooms had come on the market that was it. Nothing else was good enough now for Sally, and they could afford it if Flora pitched in the meagre rental she got from her Highland croft.

Giving an involuntary shudder because she now felt cold, Flora rose to put another shovel of coal on the fire and laughed out loud when she remembered that Sally had changed the fire from coal to a gas miser and all she was required to do was switch it on and soon the room would be as warm as toast. She wasn’t, however, done with reminiscing. No, she now looked about and admitted that it was just great having so much living space. And Sweet William just loved having the basement flat all to himself – especially now the family had grown since Sally and Harry had married in 1937. Without waiting, they went on to provide Flora with three grandchildren: Margo, who had reached fifteen and had just started work in the bank; little Helen, now nine going on ninety; and last but not least, poor wee eight-year-old Bobby.

Before her thoughts strayed to the biggest worry in her life – Bobby’s short leg – the door opened and a bleary-eyed Sally entered.

‘Did you manage to sleep, hen?’ Flora enquired, rising to go into the kitchen to fill the kettle.

‘Just on and off. Honestly, I just wonder how everything will work out now that Mammy’s gone.’

‘And why would you be concerning yourself about that? After all, when have any of them ever thought about us? And when you and I had to go out scrubbing when we first got this house, did any of them put their hand in their pockets and help us out?’

Sally nodded before saying, ‘To be truthful, I don’t give a monkey’s uncle about Paddy or Luke.’

Flora made some clucking sounds and sniffed loudly, which was the usual sign that she was going to ask a question that was none of her business. ‘And, eh,’ she speered, ‘talking of Paddy, did you manage to keep him from … ?’

‘There was no problem,’ Sally interrupted before Flora could finish. ‘In fact, he actually behaved himself.’

‘Don’t suppose you know about the funeral arrangements?’ Flora, whom no one could convince that a wild animal like Paddy would ever behave appropriately, asked.