No Greater Love (2 page)

‘Come into the house, hinnies.’ Mabel gathered them to her side nervously, the fight having left her drained and light-headed.

They followed obediently; even Helen was subdued by their mother’s strange behaviour. But Maggie grabbed her arm as she shut the door on the prying outside world.

‘It’s Da, isn’t it?’ she said simply. ‘He’s had an accident at the yard.’

‘Who told you?’ Mabel asked sharply, but from the look on her daughter’s face she could tell it was just intuition.

‘What’s happened?’ Susan blurted out, tears already in her eyes.

Mabel threw her arms about her girls. ‘Your dad fell from some scaffolding this morning. He - he’s got away.’

‘Got away where?’ Helen demanded, confused.

‘He’s dead,’ Maggie explained in a tight voice. Susan let out a loud howl. Helen and Jimmy began to sob too, infected by their eldest sister’s shock. ‘Where is he?’ Maggie asked, dry-eyed.

Mabel felt herself begin to shake, she wanted to cry like Susan and the younger children, but Maggie’s stoical acceptance helped her keep a grip on her emotions.

‘Mrs Liddle has laid him out in the parlour,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to see him yet. Aunt Violet has your tea ready, there’s plenty of time—’

‘No!’ Susan cried. ‘I can’t go in. Oh, poor Da! I want me da!’ She clung to her mother in distress and Helen started screaming, which brought Aunt Violet and Mrs Liddle rushing out of the kitchen to take charge.

But Maggie strode to the closed parlour door and threw it open. She stared into the gloom, her eyes adjusting to the murky ochre half-light. There, resting on the table in his best suit, was her father. She crept towards him, half expecting him suddenly to sit up and tell her it was just a game. But no smile came to his colourless lips under the sandy moustache and she shuddered to see a patch of matted hair around a gash to his head that Mrs Liddle’s administrations could not hide.

Maggie opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She felt her chest heave in the tomb-like room with its smell of polish and death and geraniums and thought she would suffocate. This waxen figure was not her cheerful father, he would be coming home any minute now with the wave of workers flooding out of Pearson’s shipyard.

At that moment the harsh sound of the factory claxons and the riverside buzzers drowned the mournful sobbing from the hallway. Maggie turned and ran, pushing past her mother and sisters and evading Aunt Violet’s grasp until she was out in the fresh air of the chilly September afternoon. Then she tore down the hill and did not stop until she reached the slick steel ribbon of the River Tyne.

Sitting on the landing steps of a local rowing club, Maggie stared out on the glinting oily expanse of river, trying to rid her mind of the image of her father slipping from the wooden scaffolding and falling to his death. What terrified her most was that she had seen it in her mind’s eye earlier that day as they played with hoops in the school yard - a man falling from a great height like a rag doll. She rubbed her eyes savagely and told herself she must have made it up. Never again would she allow her mind to wander in its fanciful way and play tricks in her head. Then someone shouted at her to clear off and at last Maggie was able to cry - the huge sobbing tears of a ten-year-old - which sent her running for home and the safety of her mother’s arms.

***

The day before her father’s funeral, Maggie came home from school to find Granny Beaton had arrived from Glasgow. She sat in the parlour beside the open coffin, bound in black taffeta and a severe look, like a picture of the late Queen Victoria. Helen and Jimmy cowered away from her and Susan busied herself helping her mother in the kitchen, but Maggie stared in fascination at the craggy-faced woman who looked as old as the hills and spoke in a strange soft voice, beckoning her to come closer.

Scared as she was, Maggie stepped into the sombre room, keeping her look from straying to the corpse ready to be nailed up for its final journey to the cemetery.

‘And you must be Margaret,’ the old woman said in a slow lisping voice.

‘Maggie,’ she answered stubbornly, her heart hammering.

‘Come, let me look at you,’ Granny Beaton commanded and held out a bony hand. Maggie did not take it, but she stepped nearer, amazed to see faded red hair where there should have been white poking out from underneath the ancient woman’s black cap and ribbons.

‘You’re like your mother right enough,’ Granny Beaton nodded, with a catch of her breath.

‘How long are you staying?’ Maggie asked bluntly.

Her grandmother’s watery brown eyes widened in surprise and then her lined face broke into a delightful smile.

‘As long as your mother needs me, Margaret,’ she replied.

‘Maggie,’ Maggie insisted. They regarded one another for a moment ‘Why have you never been to see us before?’

Granny Beaton let out a soft sigh. ‘I’m not a great one for the travelling - Maggie,’ she explained. ‘I’ve had to move about more than God intended. But I came for your christening - I came for all your christenings, so I did.’

‘Tell me about your travelling, Granny.’ Maggie edged closer, until she brushed the rustling material of her grandmother’s black gown.

Granny Beaton placed a hand about her slim shoulders and pulled her into the crook of her arm. She smelt musty as mothballs and Maggie felt a moment of fear, but the soft voice was speaking to her again in its hypnotic lilt, as if Granny Beaton was trying out a new language that did not come easily.

That afternoon, Maggie heard for the first time the stories she was to demand constantly from her Highland grandmother in the days to come, of a childhood in the shadow of vast mountains, of legends and timeless songs, of a time when Granny and her people were moved down to the seashore to pick a living from the sea.

When Mabel entered the darkened parlour she was amazed to see Maggie sitting on Alec’s mother’s knee, enthralled by the tale of the family’s eviction from their thatched home on the crowded shoreline by the men of power and money who owned the land and the long trek which took them finally to Glasgow.

‘And they threw earth on the fire,’ Granny Beaton’s voice was almost a chant, ‘and the heart went out of the place. And the wailing of the women could be heard on the hilltops that day from Sgurr Beag to Druim nan Sgarbh. And they put our things into an open cart in the rain and charged us money for the hire of it.’ Granny trembled.

Mabel shuddered at the stark words, wondering what was to become of her own family and possessions now there was no wage coming into the household. She had been able to pay the rentman this week as usual, but next week, where would she find the seven shillings to keep them in the house of which she was so proud? She was suddenly angry with her mother-in-law for filling the child’s head full of gloomy tales that had such a prophetic ring about them.

‘There’s no need to go frightening Maggie with such stories, Mrs Beaton,’ Mabel broke in abruptly, ‘especially at a time like this.’

But the look on Maggie’s face told her it was too late. The girl’s grey eyes were a mixture of wonder at the story and indignation at the treatment of Granny and her people.

‘And Da was only a bairn and they still threw him out the house?’ she asked furiously.

‘Aye, barely weaned,’ Granny sighed.

‘Then they were bad, wicked men!’ Maggie shouted, almost in tears.

‘That’s enough,’ Mabel commanded, grabbing hold of Maggie and pulling her from her grandmother’s knee. ‘There’s no point dwelling on the past. Come and get your tea.’ She almost dragged the girl from the room, leaving Granny Beaton sitting alone with her dead son and her ghostly memories.

***

Maggie remembered little of the funeral day, except the moment when they were all bidden to kiss their cold, dead father goodbye. She recalled the chill waxen feel of his cheek and was thankful when the undertaker covered him up with the polished oak lid and carried him from the parlour.

The children watched from the front door as the coffin was heaved into the horse-drawn hearse which Aunt Violet had enviously told Mrs Liddle was costing twenty shillings to hire. ‘Sparing no expense, is Mabel,’ Aunt Violet had said disapprovingly in Maggie’s presence. ‘Would have thought she’d be better spending it on the bairns. She’ll find out now what it’s like having to scrimp and save.’

‘She’ll likely have money put by,’ Mrs Liddle had answered briskly and given Violet a warning look.

The horse snorted and stamped to be off, nodding its black-plumed head as the undertaker climbed onto the carriage in his black top hat and took the reins. Then they were clattering off down the street and Aunt Violet was ushering the children indoors.

Maggie and her sisters sat around fidgeting in their Sunday dresses, while their mother and aunt and several neighbours busied themselves in the kitchen preparing the funeral tea. Later, their father’s workmates and friends would return from the burial and eat the dainty sandwiches and wedges of homemade sponge cake and express their sorrow at losing a fine colleague. Uncle Barny, Aunt Violet’s invalid husband, was the only male relation that the family could muster for the funeral and he was a Dodds not a Beaton. But Maggie liked her mother’s amiable brother with his large red nose and false cork leg that often stood propped in his kitchen next to the poss stick. He was full of colourful stories of soldiering in the Boer War that Aunt Violet could not bear to hear; far from seeing him as a hero at the siege of Lichtenburg, she blamed him for his carelessness in leaving behind a leg that now rendered him jobless and forced her out to work in a tobacconist’s.

Granny Beaton was the only woman in the family who had insisted on attending the funeral service.

‘I’ll see Alec returned to his Maker,’ Granny had said stubbornly and had set out alone for the Methodist church where Mabel occasionally made the children attend Sunday School. Mabel could not remember the last time she had gone to chapel herself, but she had been grateful for the two hours of peace on a Sunday when Susan marched her siblings along the road to Mr Heslop’s classes and she and Alec had been able to draw the curtains and sneak back to bed together.

She felt a great longing for her gentle husband as she realised once again she would never feel his touch under the bedclothes or hear his bawdy whisperings. But it was not customary in their community for the wife to attend the funeral and she had no wish to go. If Alec’s old mother wished to make a spectacle of herself, let her go, Mabel thought with irritation.

One other incident that day stuck in Maggie’s memory and that was a visit from a foreman at Pearson’s where her father had worked for fifteen years. He handed over a huge bunch of flowers, the sort that Maggie had seen presented to important women when they launched ships at Pearson’s yard. And there was a large gift wrapped in brown paper.

‘Open it, Mam!’ Helen had squealed with interest, bored at being kept inside on a sunny afternoon.

The children gathered round their mother in the pristine parlour where a fire had been lit in the gleaming grate and dispelled the fusty smell of death. Helen helped her mother tear open the parcel, then stopped in disappointment at the mundane contents.

‘It’s a tub,’ Helen said in disgust.

‘And a washboard - that’s useful,’ Susan added timidly, trying to be positive.

Maggie watched her mother’s face turn from bafflement to a crimson anger.

I’ve never been so insulted!’ Mabel gasped. ‘Of all the bloody cheek!’

Aunt Violet tutted from behind. ‘They’re just trying to be practical, Mabel,’ she sniffed, her round face barely hiding her glee. ‘After all, you’ll have to make a living somehow, with all your bairns. I’ve found it hard enough just providing for me and Barny. Be thankful for what you’re given, I say.’

For a moment, Maggie thought her mother was going to strike Aunt Violet in her fury. Her eyes blazed as she took a step towards Violet and the plump woman retreated.

‘Well, I’ll not be taking in any washing for anybody!’ Mabel declared. ‘My husband was a skilled man with a good trade - the Beatons are respected around here. I’ll not have my home turned into a public washhouse! Pearson’s can keep their bloody washboard; I’d rather go begging to the parish than take their measly charity!’

Violet fled from the room as Mabel picked up the offending washboard and hurled it across the room where it dented the highly polished floor. Susan and Helen gawped at their mother and Jimmy clung anxiously to Susan’s skirt, terrified by the outburst.

Maggie ran a finger over the brand new tub; it smelt of virgin wood.

‘We could break it up and sell it for firewood, Mam,’ she suggested calmly, ‘or give it to Aunt Violet as a Christmas present.’ Mabel turned to her dark-haired daughter, still shaking with rage, and saw the glint of mischief in the girl’s grey eyes. With a smile of gratitude she put her arms round Maggie and hugged her hard.

‘That’s what we’ll do, bonny lass,’ she laughed a little hysterically, ‘give our Violet the treat she deserves.’

***

With the funeral well over and a growing family to feed, Mabel’s fighting talk began to sound hollow. She spent the last of their savings on a new pair of shoes for Susan who had suddenly sprouted to the same size as herself. On Saturdays she made sure she was out when the tickman called from the furniture shop where they had bought the large dresser for the parlour and which they only half owned. By October, Mabel was two weeks behind with the rent and owed money to the dairy and the coalman, who only gave her credit because she lived in Sarah Crescent and they knew she had possessions she could sell. Granny Beaton seemed in no hurry to return to Glasgow and even the cautious Jimmy had been won over by her stories and Gaelic songs which helped him drift into dreamless sleep. Mabel could not ask the lonely woman to go, but it worried her that she had an extra mouth to feed.

On a dank day in late October, Mabel dressed in her smartest blue gown and matching hat and set off with head held high, a heavy bag at her side, to the pawnshop on Amelia Terrace. She spread out Alec’s second-best suit on the counter, fingering the familiar material nervously and praying no one she knew had seen her enter.