The Good Provider (15 page)

It had all been so different from what he had imagined it would be and he could not cope with the swings in his moods, the strain of responsibility and uncertainty. When he had packed the bags and left Walbrook Street, for instance, he should have felt glad to be shot of the stuffy boarding-house but, in fact, he had gone with a little pang of regret and had been quite touched, though he had not shown it, when old Frew had given them a gift of bed linen and a pair of good wool blankets. He wanted things to be printed down in black and white, to know what was good and what was bad, as he had done at home in Carrick, but everything contrived against such simplicity and he felt as if he had moved not just from the country to the city but from one dimension into another. He
had
to cope,
had
to shape up to it, to fulfil his vague, rash promises and become not only a man but a provider, to keep his end of the bargain in the hope that Kirsty would keep hers.

His first day on the job had been harrowing and his agitation came out of fatigue. At Dalnavert he would have come home to a hot meal and a warm fire and a chair in which to rest his bones. He had trudged home from the yard with a similar expectation only to find chaos. Supper was a hasty affair, a meat pie and mushy peas, for Kirsty had work for him to do. She had been busy all afternoon, had purchased pots and pans and crockery from the Partick Bazaar, had found a coalman to lug two bags of best domestic upstairs and fill the bunker in the tiny hall, had made a determined start on cleaning. The kitchen was pungent with the smell of carbolic and lukewarm suds. The fire smoked. The frayed gas mantle stank like a singed hoof.

‘What was the job like?’ Kirsty had asked.

‘All right.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘No place very special.’

‘What did you deliver?’

‘Nails. In kegs.’

‘What else?’

‘Just nails. All day.’

‘What sort of horse was it?’

‘Just a horse, a dray.’

‘Did you have the reins?’

‘Nah, I’m only a porter.’

‘What’s the driver like?’

‘All right.’

‘Is he young?’

‘Nah.’

Sensing his reluctance to talk, Kirsty had asked no more questions. He was glad of it. He did not want to seem weak by complaining about the hardship of the carter’s lot and was not sure that she would understand why he hated it so much, with the din of traffic in his ears and the monotony of loading and unloading the tubby kegs, his driver, Bob McAndrew, treating his discomfort as if it were a great joke.

He had made an effort, though, to be civilised.

‘How about Oswalds’? What was it like?’ he had asked.

‘Fine,’ Kirsty had said.

He had nodded and turned his attention to the problems of the bed recess and the dismantling of all that clumsy woodwork with nothing but the hammer that Kirsty had bought for him out of the kindness of her heart. He could not understand why she was so cheerful. With her auburn hair tucked under a mob-cap and her sleeves rolled up, she fairly fizzed with energy. No doubt she was anticipating a night of love, locked in his arms. The truth was that the events of the day had drained him of all desire and he contemplated Kirsty almost objectively. It was for this girl, to possess this girl, that he had quit Dalnavert, surrendered the security of his family and given up the only sort of life he had ever known.

Fleetingly he yearned for the company of his brother and sister, for his mother’s sharp discipline, forgot the rebellion that had been simmering in him for months before Kirsty had appeared out of the darkness and the strange adventure had begun. He felt as if his father had cast him out, not given him his freedom, and he resented it. Much of his vague, youthful, moody resentment of being made to face the reality of responsibility settled, inevitably, upon Kirsty, who, on her knees on the bare floorboards, plied the scrubbing-brush with a vigour that mocked his fatigue. Hands all rough and red, face flushed, hair straggling, she paddled in greasy suds. He did not want her to do it, to have to do it. He wanted her to be sweet and soft and yielding, as fragrant and unblemished as a girl in an advertisement for Starlight soap. He blamed himself for not making it so and was angered at his impotence in protecting her from the coarse and common realities that sullied everything.

Dolefully, guiltily, he contemplated her round bottom, swelling hips and the shape of her breasts heavy under her blouse. There was no drop of passion in him. He did not see that he could avoid disappointing her again and wondered if he would ever be able to fulfil himself in her eyes, make of her the wife he wanted her to be. If he had been less raw, less gauche, he might have thrust the hurt and anger to one side, might have recognised that tenderness needed no dressings or ceremonies, might have touched her, lifted her up and taken her in his arms and told her that everything would be all right, have shown her that there was love entangled in his pride. But he had seen none of it, had no models, and in his confusion snapped at her, ‘Kirsty, for God’s sake, can it not wait till tomorrow?’

She glanced over her shoulder, gave him an uncertain smile.

‘I’ll not be long, dear.’

Oh, God, she assumed he was eager to get her into bed.

‘Come on, mop up that mess,’ he told her.

‘I’ll just be—’

‘
Now, Kirsty
,’ he snapped.

She got to her feet, plopped brush into pail, carried the pail to the sink and emptied it, lifted the new, tousled mop and whisked it over the wet boards.

Craig leaned on the wall by the bed recess, watching her blearily.

She wrung out the mop under the cold-water tap, rinsed the pail and turned it up to dry.

‘Soon be finished, Craig,’ she told him cheerfully.

This was his wedding night, his honeymoon. He sighed, took his grip from under the bed and went out into the hallway. He changed from his work clothes into a clean shirt and, standing there, stared down at his body. He placed a hand tentatively on his parts and experienced no response at all. He tiptoed out of the house and scurried down to the water closet on the half-landing, praying that he would not meet any of the neighbours. When he got back, tense and shivering, to the kitchen he found that Kirsty had managed to make up the bed. There was no mattress yet but she had tucked a blanket over the hard boards and folded the new linen sheets, fashioned a pillow out of one of Mrs Frew’s wool blankets.

Craig stared in horror and gave a little inaudible groan when Kirsty discreetly lowered the flame of the gas to relieve the kitchen of its starkness and bring in at least a touch of romantic mystery.

Did she not realise how tired he was, that he would have to be up again in about four hours and would be jolting on the board of a horse-cart in five, heaving bloody nail-kegs about? He ached with weariness and craved only sleep. Never before had he appreciated such trivial luxuries as a pillow, a mattress and a bed that he could call his own.

‘Pop in, dear,’ said Kirsty.

‘What – what about you?’

‘I’ll be with you in a minute, Craig.’

Cautiously Craig fitted himself into the makeshift bed. He sighed, rested his neck on the flat pillow, slid out his legs, turned on his hip, tucked up his knees, stared at the scarred and yellowing paper on the back wall.

He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, tainted with smoke and carbolic soap. He sighed again and with an effort of will, forced himself to fall asleep.

Kirsty was neither surprised nor disappointed to discover that Craig had fallen asleep. She had expected as much. She had not even taken her brand-new nightgown from its tissue wrapping and wore only her usual clean, patched shift. She gave her hair attention with the brush and then went softly to the side of the bed and knelt by him. He was curled up against the back wall, snoring fiercely. She had never seen him so tired and dejected and felt guilty about it, believing that she had somehow disappointed him.

She got up, stretched and glanced about the kitchen.

All her chores had been done. The fire was banked, kettle put on the hob; the tea-caddy, porridge pot and salt shaker were placed where she could find them in the drowsy bumbling half-light of the morning hour. She had even remembered to put the butter dish and milk jug in the cold stone sink. She would be first up, of course, at four o’clock.

She picked up the nickel-plated Peep-o-Day American alarm clock that Craig had bought as an essential item and set it as he had instructed her to do, listening to the tiny fairy-like
ting
of the bell cup and the whirr of its interior mechanism. She put the alarm on a chair and the chair close to the bed recess. All she could see of Craig was a lock of dark hair above the cowl of the blanket and one bare foot at the other end of the bed. She slipped carefully in beside him.

She wriggled into position, adjusted her bottom, made herself as small and unobtrusive as possible. She longed to be able to put her arms about him, hug him to her, but did not dare in case he wakened and supposed that she was putting him under an obligation.

Tomorrow would be better for him; she would make sure that it was better.

She slid an arm along his flank and was soothed by the passive touching. She snuggled closer to her man who did not stir, not even when she kissed him lightly on the earlobe and sleepily whispered her goodnights.

Kirsty arrived at Oswalds’ in the calm primrose dawn of a fine April morning. Mrs Dykes was waiting to give her a change of occupation. Saturday was a busy day in the Cakery. Rich, poor and in-between families were all given to perking up their tea-tables with cakes and fancy confections and orders would be thick on the spikes. Kirsty had quickly mastered the routine tasks of the packing-room, guided by Letty, a skinny tubercular girl of about her own age, and Mrs McNeil, a square-faced, square-bodied woman of forty or so who, now that she had borne a family, had returned to work to help make ends meet.

Letty was chatty but Kirsty could not understand half of what she said for the girl had a real Glasgow accent and gave no quarter in her prattle. The work on the boards was simple but fraught with pitfalls for a novice who had not yet learned the names for all the cakes and who could not always decipher the scribbles on the order slips.

‘Letty, what does that say?’

‘Dozen coconut buns, dozen snowballs, two dozen fairy cakes, three dozen almond slices,’ Letty would interpret in her incredible accent, adding, ‘A wee board’ll dae ye.’

Kirsty would find a small board, would move along the flour-dusted iron racks that backed the packing-tables and pluck out the appropriate number of cakes and place them on the board in neat rows. She would then lick the original order slip, slap it to the side of the board and carry the board to the ‘vanman’s table’ where it would be picked up by a delivery boy or one of Oswalds’ carriers.

Kirsty had assumed that her tasks would remain the same from day to day, varied only by sessions of cake-making when seasonal demand was high. She was surprised when, on that first Saturday, Mrs Dykes led her away from the tables only moments after she arrived.

‘Can you count?’ said Mrs Dykes.

‘Aye, well enough.’

‘What’s four times four?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Go into the store. Tommy’ll tell you what to do.’

The flour store lay between the sheds and the bakehouse and Mrs Dykes’ son, Tommy, was waiting for Kirsty there.

On seeing her, Tommy grinned, showing large white teeth and pink gums. He was probably about her own age, Kirsty judged, but his gawky arrogance made him seem like a child pretending to be an adult. From the first she could not take him seriously. He wore a flannel vest and a brown apron. His arms were thin and hairless and his ears stuck out like the handles of a chamber-pot.

He said, ‘So you’re the new one, eh?’

‘Aye.’

‘You’ve to do what I tell ye.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Measurin’ the mixes. It’s no’ every lassie gets to do it but my mam has you marked as a smart one, so just you listen to me.’ From behind his back Tommy Dykes produced a metal scoop attached to a short wooden handle. ‘See this? This is a two-pounder.’

He handed her the utensil, stepped to the side and slapped a hand on the lid of a wooden bin, chest-high and some six feet in breadth. A dozen such bins lined the storeroom. Two wooden tables occupied the centre of the room.

‘See this?’ Tommy said. ‘Cornflour.’

The bins were coated in the ubiquitous grey dust that seemed to infiltrate every corner in Oswalds’ Cakery.

Kirsty nodded; she had already noticed the printed sign above the bin which identified its contents. Tommy put a hand on her waist and steered her to the left.

‘See this? Oat-flour.’

He gave her a squeeze and guided her on.

‘See this—’

‘Rice-flour,’ said Kirsty.

‘How’d you know that?’

‘I can read, Mr Dykes,’ Kirsty told him, nodding at the sign.

Tommy grunted and led her to the tables.

Upon them were a series of large metal bowls of different sizes.