The River Flows On (18 page)

Inside the restaurant, in contrast to the pea-souper which was blanketing the outside world, all was bright and cosy. The tablecloths gleamed white and waitresses in black dresses and equally spotless white lace-trimmed aprons and caps moved smoothly about the room serving tea, coffee and orangeade for the children, enjoying afternoon tea with their parents as a Saturday treat.

There was a standard charge, which suited Kate perfectly. The first time she had gone with them, Marjorie had tried to pay for her too. She hadn’t tried again. Kate had bristled the way Mr Asquith did when another cat had the temerity to walk into his back court. She couldn’t help noticing, however, that Jack Drummond and Suzanne Douglas were quite happy to let Marjorie pick up their bills as well as her own.

Kate loved the conversations the group had. They held passionate discussions on the meaning of art and how important it was for the artist to be honest. They talked about politics and their trips to Europe, and whether there would ever be another war. They talked about love and marriage and women’s rights and of how different they were from their parents’ generation. They talked about everything, and they exchanged books and magazines and newspaper articles on all possible topics of interest.

Kate had learned a lot - about the new style called
Art Deco
, named for the exhibition of
Arts Décoratifs et Industriels
held in Paris a couple of years before. According to Jack Drummond, this style was poised to take over from
Art Nouveau,
which had dominated design since before the turn of the century. Kate was surprised how knowledgeable he was about it. He evidently didn’t spend all his time drinking cocktails and playing golf.

Kate loved what she had seen of
Art Deco
style. It was clean and pure and modern. The new generation of artists and craftworkers used bold primary colours, contrasting them with sharp black, white and silver. They represented nature in a totally new way, and delighted in using such diverse images as geometric shapes and the fluid lines of the female form. She had seen photographs of beautiful little statuettes of women - usually dancing - their bodies caught in movement and their clothes flowing. It was all so different and fresh - a dramatic contrast to the fussy styles which had preceded it.

Marjorie was still enthusing about Clarice Cliff, while Suzanne was still arguing with her about the impossibility of a teapot’s being able to be any other shape than the conventionally accepted one.

‘Of course it can,’ said Marjorie robustly. ‘Don’t you think so, Kate?’

‘Oh yes,’ began Kate, leaning forward over the table and forgetting her shyness in her interest in the subject.

‘The little mouse speaks,’ Suzanne Douglas murmured through her scarlet lips.

‘Shut up, Suzanne,’ Jack Drummond growled. ‘I want to hear what Miss Cameron has to say, even if you don’t.’

Kate blushed and stuttered and somehow managed to finish her sentence.

Later, at the coat-stand behind a screen in a corner of the room, getting ready to venture out into the fog, Kate glanced up at Marjorie’s new coat. It was beautiful, in a mixture of red and dark green velvet, the swirls of the pattern resembling the Glasgow rose. The coat had square shoulders, tapering to a narrow hem, and a deep shawl collar in plain green velvet. She couldn’t resist stroking the luxurious pile of the material, soft and deep under her hand. With a sigh, she swung her own herringbone tweed coat - one of Agnes Baxter’s acquisitions - around her head, ready to put it on. Other hands took it from her and helped her into it.

‘Oh! Thank you,’ she said, turning around when the operation was complete. Had he seen her touching the collar of Marjorie’s coat? She hoped not, uncomfortably aware that the gesture had been all too revealing. She longed to be able to afford beautiful clothes like Marjorie’s.

Jack Drummond, however, said nothing. Smiling politely at her, he turned to take down her muffler which had been hanging underneath her coat.

‘Wrap up warm now - and make sure you have this round your mouth. It’s pretty bad out there. Where did you put your bag?’

Bemused by his attention to her welfare, Kate covered her confusion by turning away to the big mirror, heavily framed in oak, which was on the opposite wall of the lobby created by the screen. The muffler pulled up over her mouth, she turned again to take her leave of Jack Drummond. He was holding the big bag in which she kept her painting gear and he was smiling. He put a hand out and tugged gently on the diminutive brim of her cloche hat.

‘Between this and the muffler, all I can see of you are your eyes.’

There was a brief pause. She should say something. Something sharp and funny. She managed it easily enough with the lads at the yard, but Jack Drummond was a different kettle of fish entirely. He held out the bag to her.

‘See you after the holidays. Mind how you go, now!’

Emptying her bag at home that evening, she pulled out Mr Donaldson’s old shirt. Marjorie had insisted she kept it. Her father had laughed for days at the thought that his daughter was wearing one of the boss’s cast-offs.

‘Oh!’

The exclamation was surprised from Kate by what she had found underneath the striped shirt. It was a package, beautifully wrapped in paper printed with Regency stripes of silver, green and red. Her bag had felt heavier than usual. Curiously, she lifted out the package. It was fastened with red ribbon, finished off with a beautifully tied bow. A small green envelope, tucked in behind the bow, was addressed to
Miss Kathleen Cameron.

Looking guiltily around from the box bed on which she had rested her bag, prior to stowing the contents away in the drawers underneath, she saw only Granny snoring in her chair and Mr Asquith fixing her with his yellow eyes from one of his favourite spots, on top of the small hearth rug which covered the oil-cloth flooring in front of the range. From the other side of the wall behind the bed came the murmur of voices - her mother and Davie. She didn’t know where everybody else had disappeared to. Right at this moment she was grateful that it was only the cat who was looking at her.

‘You’ll not clipe on me, son, will you?’ whispered Kate. Mr Asquith continued to give her an unblinking stare which seemed to tell her not necessarily to count on his discretion.

Why, in any case, should she be feeling guilty because someone had given her a present? Stupid question. She knew exactly why. She also knew that she wasn’t going to have to call in Sherlock Holmes to help her work out who had slipped the gift into her bag. Turning her back on the cat and the room, she untied the ribbon and removed the paper.

‘Oh!’ she breathed again. She was holding a beautiful box of chocolates in her hand, the lid decorated with a picture of a huge vase of flowers. She laid it carefully on the bed and, fumbling, opened the little green envelope and found a white card inside. The handwriting sloped elegantly.

I behaved very badly at our first meeting, and I’m sorry for it. Please tell me that I’m forgiven. Merry Christmas.
It was signed simply with his initials.
J. D.

‘What have we here, then?’

Kate let out a yelp. Pearl was right behind her, peering over her shoulder. She thrust the box of chocolates under her sketch book and turned hurriedly. Mr Asquith, she saw, had dived for cover under the sink curtain; Had she screamed that loudly?

‘Pearl! What a fright you gave me. You shouldn’t creep up on people like that. I was just putting my painting things away.’

‘Oh, aye? Is that what you were doing?’ Leaning forward, Pearl scooped up the box of chocolates from under the sketch book where Kate had tried to hide them - unsuccessfully, it appeared now.

‘Gosh,’ said Pearl, her eyes growing wide in her pretty face. ‘None o’ your rubbish. This is our most luxurious line. Whoever he is, these must have cost him a packet.’ She looked Kate straight in the eye.

‘He’s just a friend,’ said Kate quickly. Too quickly. And he wasn’t a friend, anyway. Was he?

‘That’s what you say about Robbie,’ observed Pearl shrewdly, giving her older sister a very worldly-wise look. ‘Only it wasnae Robbie that gave you these. What’s his name?’

‘Mr Nobody,’ said Kate smartly, snatching the box of chocolates out of Pearl’s grasp. With her free hand, she cleared a space on the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She looked up at Pearl, trying the worldly-wise look herself.

‘Would you like a chocolate, sister dear?’

Pearl gave her a smile which told Kate quite clearly that she wasn’t fooled one little bit by this apparent lack of concern.

‘Of course I’d like a chocolate. Three or four if you want me not to tell Mammy about them,’ she added complacently. ‘Or about Mr Nobody. Are you sure he’s not Mr Right?’

‘Don’t be daft, Pearl,’ said Kate, her tone sharp. ‘Of course he’s not.’ She dropped her eyes, concentrating on removing the outer wrapper and opening the box of chocolates. Lifting the lid, she offered her sister first choice. Jessie would have to get some too, of course, and wee Davie. She’d need to swear them both to secrecy. Pearl popped a chocolate into her mouth and began chewing it with relish.

‘We’re not allowed to eat these ones at work. Too posh for the likes of us.’ The knowing look stayed on her face. She arched her eyebrows. She had plucked them to a thin, perfectly-shaped line, which she had then filled out and defined with a black make-up pencil. She finished the chocolate and picked out another.

‘Mr Nobody?’

‘Mr Nobody,’ said Kate firmly. With sudden decision, she leaped to her feet. ‘Here, take your other two. I’m putting this away now.’

Jack Drummond most definitely was not Mr Right. That much she was sure of. Men like him weren’t interested in girls like her. Well, only for one thing, and if he thought she was that .kind of a girl, he had another think coming.

However, it wasn’t that robust thought which lingered in her head over Christmas and New Year, but Pearl’s question to her that kept popping up at the most inconvenient moments. Are you sure he’s not Mr Right? Ridiculous though that thought was.

Chapter 10

She had to thank him for the chocolates. She might be poor, but she’d been brought up to have good manners, She thought about writing him a letter, then realized she didn’t know his address. That meant she would have to wait till the class resumed in January. That raised a big problem. If she thanked him in front of everyone else, they would know that he had given her a present, and they would ask why, and then people would start teasing and it would all get too complicated for words.

Kate could imagine the interested gleam in Suzanne Douglas’s eye. That made her think of Pearl, whose sharp eyes never missed a trick - or a handsome man. Kate allowed herself a moment’s amusement at how horrified Suzanne would be by the comparison to someone she would no doubt consider, if she thought of such people at all, as a little shopgirl.

The alternative solution to Kate’s problem was to try to get a few minutes alone with Jack Drummond. Oh Mammy, Daddy, that was just as bad an idea!

When the class started up again in January, Kate had the distinct feeling Jack was well aware of her predicament - was even gently amused by it. He kept glancing across at her, giving her little smiles when no one else was looking. She delayed packing up her things at the end of the lesson, hoping he would get the message and wait behind too. Then she could quickly say thanks for the chocolates and leave. He would go down Dalhousie Street to join the others somewhere in Sauchiehall Street and she would go down Scott Street to get her tram. She had already told Marjorie she wasn’t going to make it for tea today.

He got the message. Only too well.

‘They’ve all gone.’

Kate looked up from the third and totally unnecessary rearrangement of the contents of her bag. He was right. The two of them were alone in the big bright room. The sun, gathering its strength before sliding into the early winter twilight, slanted through the long windows and transformed his fair hair into a gleaming helmet. Like an angel, thought Kate, or a knight in shining armour. He’s real handsome, standing there so relaxed in his casual clothes, smiling at me...