The Tangling of the Web (7 page)

Harry had laughed to himself as he conceded that his mother taking Sally in when her mother had put her and her brother Peter out had ended up more to her advantage than to his. True, he had two clucking women looking after him, but they also had what they had both been lacking: a woman companion, and a strong, bonded mother-and-daughter relationship.

Harry vividly recalled standing in the Waverley Station on a sunny April day in 1940 hugging pregnant Sally. When he jumped aboard his mother called out, ‘Off you go, son. And do your duty, and see Sally here …’ She stopped, linked her arm through Sally’s and continued, ‘… I’ll look after her. No way would I let the lassie have her first bairn, my first grandchild, without me being with her every step of the road.’

The army had been good for Harry. It was there that his being able to sing had become an advantage: instead of being put on the front line he was seconded to kitchen duties and in his spare time he was expected to join the troupe that entertained the bored troops who were waiting to be sent overseas.

By the end of the war, Harry found settling down to civilian life difficult. He missed the camaraderie of the men and the dalliances with the pretty women. He always sighed and smiled when he thought of these flirtatious affairs. These women were so different to Sally. Sally was not as attractive, but she was safe. He always knew she would be there for him. Build his home. Have his children. Welcome his mother into their lives. And never would she complain. There was one problem though: Maggie. Maggie had become Sally’s pal when Sally had gone to work in the Cooperative when Margo was a year old. Being five years older than Sally, Maggie had been a good help in settling Sally into the work routine. So it was only natural that they slipped into being pals who went to the pictures together. Before long, Maggie, who made Sally look beautiful, became part of the Stuart household.

Maggie had even been in the house the night Harry had come home to say he was now a fully trained train driver. And not only would he have his own train, but he had also been asked to sing at a workmen’s club on Saturday night.

Throwing her arms around his neck, Sally chortled into his ear, ‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not,’ replied Harry, disentangling himself from his heavily pregnant wife and giving her tummy an intimate pat. His eyes were now drawn to Maggie, whose expression made him feel uneasy, as if somehow he had no right to be demonstrating his affection for his wife.

* * *

Sally would always remember her mother’s funeral in Seafield Crematorium as one of the weirdest she would ever attend in her life.

There were flowers and speeches, but no one except Josie cried. What Sally didn’t know was that Josie wasn’t crying because she had lost her mother, it was because her mother had deliberately kept her in the dark about Roy’s mother’s letters. Josie was so distraught she was unable to stand for the committal of the coffin. Her thoughts were away in America, where she was sure her life would have been so wonderful with her daughter and Roy’s mother by her side.

Everyone returned to Iona Street for the boiled-ham tea. However, Sally felt spooked by her stepbrother Luke’s behaviour when he took every opportunity to secretly indicate by dragging his fingers over his neck that he wished to cut Sally’s throat. She had repeatedly told him that she hadn’t stood by whilst Paddy ended their mother’s life. But he had made up his mind that she had and, more importantly, that he would get even with her one day. This unreasonable behaviour resulted in Sally feeling she couldn’t get out of the house quickly enough and therefore she and her family were first to leave.

On returning to Elgin Terrace, the tension of the day still hung heavily with Sally so she busied herself in the kitchen, but her thoughts were still in Iona Street. Attacking the potatoes with a peeler, she vowed she would never ever enter that house again. But then that would be easy because from the day she and Peter had been evicted from it she had detested the place.

Before she knew it, it was nine o’clock in the evening and she was sitting at the table drinking tea with Flora and Maggie, just idly chatting about nothing in particular, when Josie flounced in.

‘Sally,’ exclaimed Josie, flopping down on the settee, ‘you’re never going to believe this.’

Flora and Sally exchanged a knowing glance. Maggie’s eyes flashed to the ceiling.

‘Well,’ continued Josie, apparently unaware of the reaction she was getting, ‘I held on after you left. You know me: the skivvy who’s always washing dishes and tidying up. But by five o’clock I’d had enough. Honestly, I just had to get out of there.’

Flora, Maggie and Sally all glanced at the clock before Sally asked, ‘But it’s gone ten; where have you been since five?’

‘Walking …’

‘You, walking?’ exclaimed Flora, who knew that Josie walked very little because she always wore shoes whose heels were so high that she tottered.

Josie huffed. ‘Yes: me, walking, because I was trying to get some sense into all that has happened these last few days.’ She paused. ‘And before I knew it,’ she continued emphatically, ‘I had joined the queue of the Palace Picture House in Constitution Street.’

‘Surely you mean Duke Street,’ Maggie was quick to suggest.

‘No. If you go in the Duke Street queue it costs either one and sixpence or if you really want in straight away and a comfy seat then it’s one and ninepence.’

‘Oh, so you ended up standing in the one and three queue?’

‘Yes, and that’s where it all started to get unreal.’ To her annoyance, her audience only glanced at each other and shrugged but no one verbally responded, so Josie babbled on. ‘My mind was far away on the funeral and everything, but I became aware that there was now a restlessness in the crowd and people were nudging each other and whispering, “It is her. No one could mistake that face.” I turned round to see who they were speaking about and the man behind me said, “It is you, isn’t it? Wait until I tell my mates that there I was waiting to see James Mason in
A Star Is Born
and who else is in the queue wanting to see the film but none other than his previous co-star Margaret Lockwood!” Next thing they were all running to get bits of paper so I could give them my autograph.’

Flora rose to fill the kettle again. Maggie dropped her head and looked as if she was trying to pull her hair out. Sally sat dumbfounded whilst she wondered if Josie would ever stop these flights of fancy and get herself grounded in reality.

‘But, Mum,’ twenty-year-old Margo protested, ‘Annie Burgess, who just works gutting fish in Croan’s factory, is having her wedding reception in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.’

Sally wrinkled her brows and shrugged before suggesting, ‘But surely you mean the Assembly Rooms in Leith.’

‘No, Edinburgh. And that’s because her granny, on her mother’s side, is a Newhaven fishwife and she’s contributing towards the festivities.’

She stood back to get a good look at her daughter, who, she conceded, was a better-looking woman than she was, but then Margo was taller than herself by six inches and had been fortunate enough to be endowed with the ginger-blonde locks of her father’s people. The only assets Margo took from herself were her ability to speak up for herself and her crystal-blue eyes, which, somehow, like her late Granny Peggy’s, lacked warmth.

Sally, who hated to be reminded of her mother, responded with a wry chuckle. ‘Ah well, thankfully your grandmother, Peggy, on my side, has been keeping the good Lord company for five years now. And your other grandmother, Flora, has had to swallow her pride and take on the job of cleaning up every day in the Four Marys pub on the Shore in Leith.’ Sally huffed before adding, ‘And all because she let her nephew, William, sweet-talk her into him running her wee Highland croft for her.’ Sally sighed before going on. ‘Only problem with that is, he says he can’t make a penny from it, so that means she has to stump up to pay the running costs.’

‘So you’re saying Granny won’t be pitching in with any help for
my
wedding.’

‘That’s right. After she sends the money north this month to pay the rates on Culloden, she won’t have enough left to help you finance the hiring of a telephone box.’

Sally wished she could be cruel enough to be truthful and also say,
And I might add that the thought of you and Johnny Souter, who haven’t an ounce of common sense between you, getting married is the stuff of nightmares.

Irritated by Sally’s lack of enthusiasm, Margo spluttered, ‘That’s you all over, Mum. You’re only happy when you’re shooting my dreams down in flames.’ Margo hesitated before adding, ‘But this time there is a way for my aims to come true – whether you like it or not.’

‘There is?’

Fearing retaliation from her mother, Margo waltzed around the table. ‘Yes, and it’s so simple.’

Simple,
thought Sally.
Sometimes, my dear Margo, I think you are just that.

Unaware that her mother was questioning her intelligence, Margo smiled affectedly before simpering, ‘Yes. Now that Daddy has got a job on a Saturday night serenading the customers in the posh Albyn Rooms in Queen Street no less, that is where I should have my wedding.’

‘As we are not related to Andrew Carnegie,’ Sally managed to splutter through her laughter, ‘where do you think we’ll get the wherewithal to pay what they would charge?’

‘Staff get a small discount,’ Margo immediately retaliated.

‘Sort of. But Maggie and I getting a buckshee dinner there on a busy Saturday night because we help clear up when the customers leave is very different to taking over the whole premises for the night.’

‘I know that,’ Margo protested. ‘But as Daddy is so well in with the owner now … ’

‘Oh aye,’ mocked Sally. ‘None other than our gorgeous Ginny!’

‘And,’ Margo continued, ignoring her mother’s wry comment, ‘if we agreed to have the wedding on a Monday, when the rooms are normally closed, it could all be done for the cost price of the food and a wee bung to the waiters and the band.’ Margo’s belief that she had at last outfoxed her astute mother was evident from the smug, self-satisfied expression on her face. ‘So what do you have to say about all that?’ she teased.

Dropping down on a chair, flabbergasted Sally found herself softly whistling as she drummed her fingers on her chin. She was grateful that Margo was keeping herself out of striking distance – not that Sally ever struck her children, but if ever she was to lose control and lash out at any of them, she knew it would be Margo. Shaking her head wearily, she reasoned that it was true that there were such things as idiosyncrasies running in families.
But,
she asked herself,
Why oh why does this child of mine have to take after my sister and suffer from delusions of grandeur? Surely, my good Lord, one bampot in a family is enough?

‘Mum, while you’re in another of your trances I’m still waiting for an answer.’

‘Mmm,’ responded Sally, before eventually saying, ‘know something, Margo, why don’t you run your wonderful ideas past your dad.’

‘I would, but as you know he has turned into the silent man these last six weeks.’

This statement came as a surprise to Sally, who thought no one else had noticed the change in her Harry.
Know something,
she silently mused,
Never mind this blooming marriage between two young folk who are divorced from reality, I must get Dr Hannah to give my Harry the once-over.

Two months later, the family assembled at the Church of Scotland’s Pilrig/Dalmeny Church for the wedding of Margo to Johnny Souter.

Fifteen minutes had passed since Sally, accompanied by Flora, Josie and Maggie, had taken their seat in the front pew. Listening to the organ music should have calmed Sally, but she was engulfed by an atmosphere of dread. But then from the minute Margo had put her proposition to Harry, everything and everybody’s attitude changed.

Sally conceded it was as if they had all become strangers. Maggie didn’t seem comfortable visiting any more and she never suggested to her that they should go and see a picture in the Gateway Film House. Flora appeared worried about the expense the wedding was going to incur. To help with the cost she had badgered Ginny, who forby being the owner of the Albyn Rooms was also was the licensee of the Four Marys bar, to let her pull the pints there at lunchtime. And of course Ginny, who appeared to bend over backwards for Harry’s relatives, immediately agreed. Josie – well, Josie kept herself busy with yet another male companion and when she was at home she kept mainly to her own basement flat.

Sally felt the problems had begun when Margo had sat herself down on her father’s knee and begun twisting the lobe of his right ear. This was what she used to do when she was a child and she wished to bend Harry into giving in to her. But Margo was an adult now, so Sally had been shocked when Harry, without any further persuasion than a twist of his earlobe, agreed to ask Ginny about the hiring the Albyn Rooms. Drawing Margo closer into himself, he murmured, ‘Look, Princess, your wish is my command.’ Gently stroking her back, he whispered more to himself, ‘And it’s possible that in the future life will throw up some surprises that you could do without, so I’ll just have to try to give you the lovely wedding day you will always remember.’

Sally recalled how Harry had then become quite emotional and avoided eye contact with herself and also his mother, who had just come home. Sally had long pondered that day. She knew what was ailing Harry was not physical. He had been thoroughly examined by Dr Hannah and given a clean bill of health. Maybe, she thought, it was just their firstborn Margo flying the nest that was getting to him. Sally shrugged. Or more likely that it was her refusal to ask Josie to give up the basement flat so that Margo could move in when she married.

Why couldn’t they understand,
she wondered,
that for me to have put out Josie would reinforce the feelings of rejection that Josie has felt all her life. True, she lives in cloud cuckoo land, but how else could she have survived the abusive childhood she had endured if she had not had a means of escape?
Sally sniffed back her tears.
And after all, it could be the making of over-indulged Margo when she has to live in a cramped bedroom at her mother-in-law’s guddle of a house. But then rumour has it that Ella Souter, who had been widowed by the war, is a gallus, accommodating lady – but hasn’t sunk as far as the ladies of the night who frequent the Four Marys bar to make a living – no, she is
more a ‘must be at a party every night’ and ‘new lover every season’.