Poverty Castle (24 page)

‘I was hopeless at science,' said Peggy.

It was the right reply. ‘If she's one of those stuck-up know-alls,' he'd said to his wife, ‘I'll tell her nothing doing.'

‘It's usually during July and August when girls go off on holiday that we need replacements. It's mostly putting things on shelves and sticking price-tabs on.' He grinned. ‘Not what you would call suitable work for a University student who's won prizes.'

Her father who was proud of her achievements never boasted about them, her mother who didn't value them much frequently did.

‘I'd be very grateful, Mr Stevenson,' she said.

He saw she meant it. There were at least half a dozen girls working for him who had more sex appeal, and she didn't look all that stuffy – it was tiring work keeping shelves filled – and
probably her mother had exaggerated about those prizes, but there was something genuine about Miss Gilchrist that he liked. She could have waffled when he had asked her the date of the Battle of Pinkie but she had honestly said that she didn't know. She could be trusted. She would work hard. She would get on well with the other girls.

‘Right then, Miss Gilchrist. I'll let your mother know when we want you. It should be at the beginning of the month.'

The Sempills would be setting off for Spain then. But she had promised herself not to think of them.

‘Thanks very much, Mr Stevenson,' she said, as she rose.

He was left with the warm exalted feeling that comes from helping someone who deserves it.

As she went through the big shop some of the girls in the blue uniforms smiled at her. One, who had been at school with her, came over and spoke. ‘Glad you're going to be with us for the summer, Peggy.' She was glad, too.

Her mother, at one of the check-out counters, waved. Other check-out assistants also waved. Peggy waved back.

These are my people, she thought. Why then did she suddenly feel desolate?

Out on the street there were more of her people, housewives carrying heavy shopping bags and young mothers pushing prams. Old men looked wandered, old women purposeful. Was it because the former were lost with no jobs to go to, while the latter still had homes to run?

Peggy knew that she could never deceive herself. There was always, behind the lies and pretence, the small voice of truth which might not be heeded but could not be silenced. Therefore when she came to the post office in the main street and went in, it was no use her telling herself that a minute ago she hadn't known that she was going in. The intention had been lurking in her mind all morning.

There were queues of people waiting to be served. Most had pension books in their hands. She went past them to the far end of the counter where there was a pile of telephone
directories. She picked out the one for Lomond and Argyll and looked through it until she came to the name Sempill. There was more than half a column of Semples but only one Sempill. That was the posh way of spelling it. Sempill E.I. it said. Poverty Castle. Kilcalmonell 288. She looked up the Code No. but did not bother to write it down. There was no need, not because she would remember it but because she was not going to make use of it. Did she really mean that? Yes, she did. She was not going to telephone the Sempills.

She had meant to visit the public library and then go for a walk through the public park, but she changed her mind and set off for Sonia's. Instead of talking to the Sempills in their castle she would talk to Sonia in her room-and-kitchen.

Sonia and Bobby lived in a run-down part of the town, in a flat above a derelict shop, reached by an outside stair. It did not have that ultimate degradation, an outside lavatory shared by other families, but it did not have a proper bathroom either. What it had was a tiny toilet contained in a ramshackle wooden porch. Even Peggy with her short legs found her knees scraping the wall as she sat on the lavatory seat. Sonia's latest complaint was that if her belly got any bigger she'd get stuck. She hated that toilet. It affronted her dignity as a mother-to-be. She waited till she was in agony before she would go and use it; especially when icy winds blew through cracks in the wooden walls.

Sonia and Bobby had their name down on the council housing list. There were more than a thousand names in front of theirs. The birth of little Archibald would not advance them much. It took six weans to make any difference, Sonia had said. She was quite prepared to have them, for other reasons besides that, but it would take too long.

She was surprised but pleased to see Peggy. Her flat was clean and comfortably furnished on credit. The wallpaper and carpets were too gaudy for Peggy's taste but Sonia called them cheery.

The kitchen was also the sitting-room. Peggy sat on an
orange-coloured chair while Sonia, her hair in curlers, made tea on the gas cooker.

To forestall her hostess's lamentations about the flat Peggy said that she had been to the supermarket and was fixed up to start work at the beginning of July.

‘And this,' said Sonia, going over to consult a calendar which had a picture of a sailing-ship, ‘is June 15th. If you're going to visit those swanky freen's of yours you'll hae to get a move on.'

‘I'm not going.'

Sonia was astonished. ‘But she said her family were a' looking forward to meeting you. Ah heard her myself.'

‘She was just being polite.'

‘Weel, Ah did think it a bit strange, her being sich a lady and them living in a castle, but she did say it, Peggy.'

‘They're not my kind of people.'

‘That's silly, Peggy. Ah ken it's whit your mum says but it's silly juist the same. They've a' got yin nose and twa ears, juist like you and me. They've got mair money but that's juist their guid luck and we shouldnae grudge them it. You and me could hae cashmere jumpers and Italian shoes if we had mair money, couldn't we?'

‘Could we have such good skin?' asked Peggy, teasing her.

‘Skin? My skin's as good as hers.' Sonia stroked her cheek. ‘It's juist your bad luck, Peggy, that you've got the kind of skin that attracts blackheids and spots.'

‘But wouldn't you say eating the best food, living in the country, and having a fine big house with two or three bathrooms – each of them twice the size of this kitchen – wouldn't you say all that makes them a superior kind of people?'

‘Maybe it does and maybe it doesnae. Ah prefer to think they're juist luckier. Go and see for yourself. Whitever they are they're the sort you should keep in wi'. Isn't that whit you went to University for? To meet the kind of people who could help you to rise in the work? Weel, you've met them. These Sempills. It would be a shame if you didnae tak advantage.
There are times, Peggy, when your brither and me think you're no' very smart at looking efter yourself, for a' your brains. Getting a degree's fine but it's only the beginning. It gets you intae the right company, like these Sempills. But you've got to keep in wi' them, even if it means you pushing yourself forward. That's where you've got Bobby and me worried, Peggy: you're no good at pushing yourself forward. Even in a bus queue you let people get in front of you. Ah'm being serious. Don't laugh.'

‘I'm not laughing, Sonia.'

‘When wee Eerchie's born he'll be your blood kin, Peggy. That Diana she'll hae weans, why shouldnae hers and mine and yours tae be freen's? It's no' impossible. Is it impossible, Peggy?'

‘No.'

‘If it's claes that are the trouble – you should tak mair pride in your appearance, Ah've telt you that before – then Ah'll be gled to lend you my oatmeal costume Ah was married in and hae worn only twice since, and the hat that goes wi' it. They might be on the big side for you but that wouldnae maitter. Toffs are careless aboot dress.'

‘I didn't know that, Sonia. Diana's always very well dressed.'

‘Juist as long as you don't go dressed like a tramp.'

‘I'm not going at all.'

‘You'll regret it, you'll regret it a' your life.'

So I shall, thought Peggy, and with a shudder sought to change the subject.

Unfortunately she happened then to look up.

‘So you've noticed it?' cried Sonia.

She was already on to her third chocolate biscuit, while Peggy was still nibbling her first.

There was a patch of damp on the ceiling.

‘Slates are missing,' said Sonia. ‘It's been reported but naething's been done. When it rains Ah've to put basins underneath to catch the drips.'

‘Doesn't Bobby know any slaterers?'

‘You ken Bobby. He juist says gie me peace, for You-Ken-Who's sake. This job he has, humphing bags of coal up flights
of stairs, it's too much for him. He shouldnae be daeing it for he's really a driver, but Mr Logan says he cannae afford a driver that doesnae dae his share o' humphing. There's something Ah want to ask you, Peggy. Mair tea?'

Peggy held out her cup while Sonia poured.

‘Bobby said Ah wasnae to mention it to you, so Ah'd be obliged if you said naething to him. Your faither's a member o' the Labour Party, isn't he?'

Sonia's own father, Archibald Ramsay, was a Tory. He believed that ‘Men wi' money' were better equipped to run the country than ‘socialists wi' nothing but talk.'

‘He'll ken Cooncillor Orr?' said Sonia.

‘My father knows several councillors.'

‘Orr's the yin Ah'm interested in. You see, he's chairman o' some committee that has to dae wi' housing. Ah ken for a fact that he's got a hoose for people behind me and Bobby on the list. It's true that they've got eight weans but juist the same they'd have had to wait their turn if it hadnae been for Cooncillor Orr. Whit Ah'm getting at, Peggy, is that Ah want you to ask your faither to speak to Cooncillor Orr, no' for my sake or Bobby's but for wee Eerchie's. Ah ken your faither says he's got principles but surely family comes before principles?'

‘Has Bobby asked him?'

‘Aye, but he doesn't think much of Bobby. He'd dae onything for you, Peggy. You're the apple o' his ee. Tell him it's being done a' the time.' She lowered her voice. ‘I've heard money's changed haun's.'

‘Are you saying Councillor Orr takes bribes?'

‘Ah've accused naebody, but it's done a' the time.'

‘Well, I'm sorry, Sonia, I'd like to help, but I just couldn't ask my father. He'd be insulted.'

She expected Sonia to sulk, for a minute or two anyway, but no, after a long sad sigh, Sonia went back to the subject of the Sempills and Peggy's visit to Poverty Castle.

I
T WOULD
have been far worse if she had had a taste of the tall white house, inside and out, and the four other girls, and their father with the melancholy eyes and their mother with the medieval face. In that case Peggy might have been consumed by a longing so strong that it would have made her ill. As it was her mother remarked on how pale she was.

‘You never had rosy cheeks, no' even in your pram, but Ah've never seen you that colour before. It's a' that reading. Maybe you should go and see the doctor.'

Her father was shrewder. ‘Are you missing your University freen's?' He meant them all, not Diana in particular. It never occurred to him that Peggy, brought up to take the side of the poor, might be pining for a family which she had never seen, except in a photograph, and which belonged to the parasitical class that enjoyed the best of everything without having to work for it. It amazed Peggy herself. Diana had ideas about class and rank that Peggy considered absurd and anachronistic. She was never really at ease in Mrs Brownlee's and some of the girls were never at ease with her. They said, half-jokingly, that she was preparing for when she became Lady Campton, mistress of servants. She would be able to claim that she had experience of common people. That was why she travelled in buses when she could afford taxis. All that was true, and yet if next session Diana was absent from Mrs Brownlee's Peggy would be disconsolate. A window through which a richer life than her own could be seen would have gone blank.

Then one morning while she was still in bed her mother brought her in a letter.

‘Swanky paper,' she said, with a sniff. ‘Must be from your hoi-polloi freen's.'

Her husband had once pointed out to her that hoi-polloi meant the opposite of what she thought, but she still used it.

Peggy almost said: ‘Take it away. I don't want it.' She said nothing and took the letter. Her name and address were handwritten but it wasn't Diana's handwriting. It didn't look like a woman's. It couldn't be from Edwin, could it? No, that was daft. She and Edwin had even less in common than she and Diana. Besides, they had never met.

‘Aren't you going to read it?' asked her mother.

It was curious, thought Peggy, how her mother accepted with childlike joy the most unlikely circumstances in the romances she read, such as shop girls marrying lords' sons, and yet as regards real life she was hardheaded and sceptical. As a romantic she had enjoyed Diana's visit and had entertained her colleagues in the supermarket with accounts of it, but as a realist she was convinced that association with Diana's family would be harmful to Peggy in that it would make her discontented with her own home and family.

Peggy read the letter.

‘Dear Peggy,

‘I hope you don't mind my calling you that, it would seem pompous addressing Diana's friend and room-mate as Miss Gilchrist. As the nominal head of this household I have been asked, on behalf of everyone, to remind you that you are most cordially invited to spend a few days with us in Kilcalmonell. It is very beautiful here at this time of year. Please come. We shall all be very disappointed if you don't. You see, we all know you and respect you very much, from what Diana has told us about you. Do not, we beg you, deprive us of the pleasure of meeting you in person. Write or telephone and let us know when to expect you. Arrangements will be made to collect you.