Authors: Jenny Telfer Chaplin
Aunt Meg and Uncle Jack had just left to catch a tram
to Parliamentary Road when Becky rounded on Ewan.
“What was wrong with you tonight? You hardly said a
word the whole tea-time. You barely answered when Uncle Jack tried to tease you
about your football team losing again. It was downright rude of you.”
Ewan nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I just have a lot on
my mind.”
“It had better be something pretty important to justify
your behaviour tonight.”
“It is. I didn’t want to tell you before Aunt Meg
arrived and spoil their visit but … that pay-packet I gave you last night … it
could be a long time before we see another one. I told you things were deadly
quiet at Fairfields. I’ve been lucky till now … but I was in the last batch to
be paid off. The yards are closing all up and down the Clyde there’ll be no
jobs for draftsmen anywhere.”
Two months later, just a month short of Val’s third
birthday there was an addition to the family. Sadly for a hopeful Val this was
not the longed-for kitten or puppy, or even a budgerigar or goldfish about
which she had been harping on ever since she could string two words together.
No, the arrival came in the form of a red-faced, squalling, squirming bundle
all happed up in a white knitted shawl. When Val questioned this mystery, she
learned that Becky had found the bundle under a gooseberry bush and had,
stupidly in Val’s opinion, elected to bring it home to join their family.
Val’s question as to why her mother couldn’t have
looked for a gooseberry bush that had kittens instead of a baby only produced
puzzling gales of laughter and her query on what exactly was a gooseberry bush
and which back court it was to be found in reduced her parents to fits of
giggles.
A little later when Val’s dark feelings of sibling
rivalry and jealousy erupted into surreptitious nipping of the baby and
deliberate acts of petty vandalism on Scott’s few precious toys, Becky again
resorted to the volumes at the Elder Park Library.
A study of the latest books on new-fangled child
psychology informed Becky that the best way to avoid or at least modify sibling
rivalry was to make the child feel useful. This revolutionary idea was that the
useful child would soon realise she was an important, vital, highly-valued
member of the new domestic set-up and the behaviour of the previously jealous
child would miraculously change.
Desperate to try anything, Becky immediately put this
gem of wisdom into operation in many guises. With the baby on her knee she
would smile at Val and say: “Val, I’m going to give the baby his bath now. Can
you please bring over his sponge?” Perhaps it was the novelty of the approach
which did indeed seem to work. Toddler Val, a willing slave bursting with
self-importance, trotted to and fro in the single end with the never-ending
list of nappies, towels, dusting powder and jars of nappy-rash cream.
Yes, thought Becky, the books were right. Val’s
behaviour has changed.
Unfortunately, after a very short time the previously
sneaky attacks became not only more frequent but more ferocious. She rebelled
at being a slave-in-waiting for the baby’s every need and demonstrated this by
throwing herself on the floor in temper tantrums, developing a stutter, and,
when all her other tactics failed, resorted to wetting the bed.
Becky, at her wit’s end, discussed the matter with Caz
on one of her visits to Govan.
Caz, by now the mother of four bairns and heavy with a
fifth, grinned at Becky. “Whit wiz it ye were studyin at the library? Whit did
ye cry it? Piss-ology somethin or other?”
Becky smiled. “Nearly right, Caz, Psychology, Child
Psychology. According to it, if you go the right way about it, you can bring up
any child to go the way you want. It’s all very simple really.”
“Simple, ye say? Aye, simple’s the word. Let’s face it,
hen, if ye want yer wee girl tae grow up as a nasty piece o goods, stutterin
and peein at will aw ower the shop, as weel as rampagin aw ower everythin
belangin tae other folk – aye, fine. Yer gaein the right wey aboot it.”
Becky, inwardly seething and hurt to the core by Caz’s
outburst, simply said: “Trust you, Caz – you always go right to the heart of a
problem, don’t you?”
“Ah’ve had plenty o practice. Ye name it – onythin frae
fractious, vomiting weans tae Friday nicht wife-batterin men, randy wi it –
Ah’m the authority. If ye really want ma advice …”
Becky nodded.
“It’s like this, hen, forget aw aboot aw that book
learnin. If yer Val is being naughty, a guid whack tae her bare bahoochie will
work wonders. In ma estimation nae bairn wi a sair, skelpit bum iver dun the
same mistake twice.”
Staring at her friend in disbelief Becky started to
protest, But Caz would have none of it.
“It’s a bluidy true sayin – spare the rod and spoil the
child. And by the time ye’ve got half a dozen weans …”
Becky shuddered. “Half-a-dozen temper-tantrum Vals.
Perish the thought.”
***
Ewan’s parents, Tibby and Andrew Graham, lived on
Crossloan Road and with this being so close to Becky’s single end on Langlands
Road there was naturally much coming and going between the two households. Ever
since the births of Val and her brother Scott the elderly couple revelled in
their status as grandparents and would answer only to the names of Grampa and
Gramy Graham.
Hardly a day would pass without Val saying: “Mammy, can
we go round to see Grampa and Gramy Graham after school?”
Becky thus got into the habit of meeting Val at the
school gate at three o’clock and pushing Scott’s go-chair between them, the
pair would arrive in time for afternoon tea. Grampa Graham who worked on
permanent night-shift as the Night Supervisor for Glasgow Corporation Cleansing
Department, by three-thirty would be up from his sleep, washed, and dressed in
his off-duty finery.
The Cleansing, as Becky discovered when she first met
Ewan’s parents, was the polite term for the midgie-men who emptied the middens
during the night and transported the rubbish to the destructor on Craigton Road
where Mr Graham worked. There the rubbish was sorted into various categories
and the combustibles burned.
Becky would also never forget her first sight of Mr
Graham – she had never before seen such an eccentric or bizarre style of
dressing. For his hours of relaxation at home, like the laird of some country
estate, he wore a red velvet smoking jacket, fine moleskin trousers, and, to
top his outfit off, a matching red velvet smoking hat with a long silver
tassel, the strands of which waved elegantly to and fro as he spoke.
Ewan later confided to Becky that the jacket and hat
were perks of his father’s position as Night Supervisor and that: “It’s amazing
what some of the posh West End folk throw out.”
With his precious wee grandson on his knee there surely
wasn’t a happier man in the entire Second City of the Empire than Grampa Graham
as the toddler played endlessly with the fascinating silver tassel.
***
As the months passed Ewan despaired of getting any paid
work. Uncle Jack at the bank had nothing he could offer and although Grampa
Graham could possibly have pulled some strings, the only work he could have
found for Ewan was as one of the midgie-men as, Depression or not, the
Cleansing Department still had to work. This dirty, unpleasant but essential
job, cleaning out the city’s middens, was also very hard physical labour and,
at thirty-seven, Ewan’s years of sitting or standing drawing in the shipyard
hadn’t prepared him for this type of exertion. Although he was willing to try,
Grampa Graham ruled out the option.
Becky, in an effort to comfort Ewan, only succeeded in
driving him further into despair when she pointed out that they were luckier
than most, since both Uncle Jack and Grampa Graham were still fully employed
and were more than willing and able to help out financially.
After four months of unemployment and hating accepting
handouts from his parents and Uncle Jack, Ewan finally walked into the
Langlands Road single end with a smile on his face.
“I don’t suppose you could teach me to make Scotch
broth between now and Monday morning, could you, Becky?” He placed a package
with half-a-dozen Scotch mutton pies on the table.
Becky looked at the pies and then in puzzlement at her
husband.
“What on earth are you up to?”
Ewan laughed. “I was walking down Elder Street and at
that workman’s restaurant just up from Govan Road, I bumped into this chap who
was standing on the pavement staring up at the shop front. I said I was sorry,
but he laughed. He was looking at his sign. The sign writer who’d been doing it
for him had fallen off his ladder and hurt his wrist so the sign was left half
done.
“I said I was a draftsman and could fix it up for him.
So we went into the shop and he made us a cup of
tea …”
“Okay, fine, but what does all this have to do with
making Scotch broth?”
“I’m coming to that. The owner, Alex, had only bought
the restaurant before the yards started to slow down then close, so for a while
he thought he was going to have to close too. But he now does a roaring trade
in carry-out – broth, mince and tatties, pies and gravy, you name it he sells
it.”
“Ewan I’m going to clout you with the frying pan if you
don’t come to the point – the Scotch broth.”
“Oh, yes, he needs someone to work in kitchen with him.
I told him I was a dab hand with broth.”
“Ewan, how could you? That’s a downright lie.”
“Lie be damned, Becky. But I do admit, I neglected to
say I was a dab hand at eating it, not making it. I’m sure I can learn.”
“What has all this to do with the sign? I thought you
were going to tell me you had a job as a sign writer.”
“Oh, while we were supping our tea the sign writer
laddie came back and said his apprentice would finish the sign in the morning.
Alex said I could start work in the kitchen on Monday at seven sharp.”
***
Becky chewed at her lower lip as she gazed down at her
restlessly sleeping son, and wondered what on earth she should do for the best.
Like all other mothers and grannies in the tenements all around her Becky was
something of an expert in the myriad of tried and tested home-made cures for
just about everything from a sore throat to housemaid’s knee. Although she had
already fed Scott with the recommended butter-balls rolled in sugar and he now
sported an old sock filled with heated salt round his neck and a vinegar-soaked
rag on his forehead, he was still no better.
In fact, Becky thought, I have to admit, if anything,
the wee lamb seems worse that he did earlier this morning.
With Ewan now off to work and Val safely packed off to
school, Becky had more time to concentrate, worry, and fuss over her ailing
son. It was almost unheard-of in their neighbourhood to send for a doctor
unless actually facing the jaws of death. Becky, in a dither of indecision,
agonised over the best course of action. Eventually, feeling herself to be
almost at the screaming point with worry, she decided to talk to the neighbour
across the landing.
If anyone knows what to do, Becky thought, Granny
MacAlistair should. By all accounts she’s brought up a squad of her own bairns.
She probably knows more about childhood ailments then any qualified doctor.
Just minutes after she rattled on the brass lion’s head
on Granny MacAlistair’s door, the old woman examined Scott. She shook her head.
“That wean needs a wheen mair treatment than vinegar
rags. He needs a doctor. Ah’ll wait here wi him and ye, Becky, fling on yer
shawl and scoot doon the road tae get the doctor.”
Three-quarters of an hour later Becky closed the door
behind the doctor. She stood with her forehead pressed against the rough wood
of the lintel. She stared down at her fists clutching the door knob, the
knuckles showing white.
Diphtheria! Mammy’s last child – the reason why I went
to live with Aunt Meg – died of diphtheria at just about the same age as Scott.
Granny MacAlistair pried Meg’s fingers from the
doorknob and led her to sit in the chair beside the fire.
“They’ll no be lang, lass, the doctor said. The men
should be here ony minute tae take the wee mite away.”
“Away, Granny Mac, where? In God’s name, where?”
“Tae the fever hospital. Ye don’t want yer wee lass,
Val, tae catch it tae.”
At a loud knock on the door Granny MacAlistair,
arthritic or not, leapt to her feet to admit two men carrying two long poles
wrapped round with canvas. One of the men had a blanket draped over his arm.
The brilliant colour of the wool stood out in sharp red contrast with the dark
blue of his uniform sleeve. As the blanket-bearing man approached the bed, the
other man whispered some words – presumably words of comfort – to Becky but not
one word penetrated through Becky’s current living hell.
The man at the bed smiled at Becky then said to his
colleague: “It’s no a stretcher job this, Jimmy. We’ll manage just fine wi the
blanket alone. The poor wee mite wid be lost, like a pea in a dumpling, if we
wis tae put him on the stretcher.”
The ambulance men bent down and with gentle, careful
movements peeled back the patchwork quilt. With great tenderness they lifted
Scott and wrapped him in the red hospital blanket. When all that could be seen
of her son was the mop of damp, disarranged curls, Becky stretched out her hand
for one last fond touch of his silken hair.
At a nod from the man carrying Scott the other moved to
the door and said: “Right, that’s us, Missus. If ye’ve ony other weans they’ll
need tae be kept aff the school. Yer hoose will need tae be fumigated and aw
library books will need tae be burnt. That’s the law, hen.”
As if moving in a dream, Becky followed the men through
the close as they headed towards the fever van. Just before climbing in, one of
the men said: “Yer wee laddie will be at the Fever Hospital, Missus. Although
ye’ll no be able tae visit him in the actual ward ye can probably get
permission – once he’s a bit better like, tae hae a wee keek through the window
at him.”
Becky allowed herself to be led back to her house for
the ritual reviving cup of tea. Neither of them voiced the unspoken thought
that with diphtheria it might be many a long day, if ever, before they saw
Scott again.
Happily, Scott survived the bout with diphtheria and
two years later was ready for his first day at school.
***