The River Flows On (43 page)

‘Is there aught amiss between you and Robbie, lass?’ he asked one day, coming to stand behind her as she peeled potatoes at the jaw-box.

‘No, of course not, Daddy. Why should you think that?’ She stretched, arching her back. She was six months gone now, and beginning to show.

A hand came round in front of her. It held a brightly coloured postcard, one of several which the people who had taken over the tenancy in Kilbowie Road had brought along to Yoker. ‘Because your man writes to his daughter, but never to his wife.’

The next moment she was in her father’s arms, sobbing on his shoulder as though her heart would break.

‘There, there, my lass,’ he soothed. ‘There, there. I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be sorted out.’

‘Och, Daddy! I did a terrible thing. I don’t think Robbie will ever be able to forgive me for it.’

‘Now, now.’ Neil Cameron’s voice was deep and comforting, his big hand warm on her back. ‘What could my girl have done that was so awful? I don’t know what’s gone wrong between you two, but I do know one thing. That lad loves you. He always has and he always will. You hold on to that and things’ll come all right. You’ll see. He’s gone off in the huff, that’s all, but it’ll come right, I know it will. Oh!’

He loosened his hold and Kate stepped out of his arms. Lily had come through from the front room and was tutting at their display of emotion.

‘Are those tatties going to be ready for the tea?’

Kate, turning again to her task, bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how much more she could stand of this. For the hundredth time she rehearsed the arguments about taking some of Robbie’s pay and for the hundredth time rejected them.

‘Don’t you worry, Mammy,’ she said, smoothing the hair back from her forehead with the back of her wrist, ‘the tatties’ll be ready on time.’ She was no longer prepared to act the subservient child, but she wasn’t going to snap back either. She had to stay calm - for the baby’s sake.

Unobtrusively, out of sight of his wife, her father patted her arm. At least somebody appreciated her. She knew Jessie did, too. The two sisters had initiated a ritual. Kate had a cup of tea waiting for her when she came in from school, but Jessie served it, making Kate put her feet up and take a rest while they chatted about their respective days. Kate’s were getting less and less interesting but she enjoyed hearing Jessie’s chat about her colleagues and the children in her class.

Then, over-riding Kate’s protests that Jessie had too much marking to do, her younger sister would help Lily get the evening meal, insisting Kate stay where she was in front of the range, despite Lily’s barbed comments about expectant mothers never being pampered like that in her day.

Kate went on with the peeling. Thank goodness they were onto the old tatties. She hated all the scraping that went with new ones. It was late August now, and summer was slowly beginning to give way to autumn. Oh God, please let him come home in time for the new baby’s birth!

She had written to him once, to let him know they had moved back to Yoker. She had gone up to the shipping company in the Broomielaw after all, where a sharp-eyed clerkess in a frilly blouse and a well-lipsticked mouth had instructed her, as though she were a halfwit, to address any mail to Robbie care of the ship he was on.

‘I think I could have worked that bit out,’ murmured Kate, piqued by the way the girl was looking her up and down. She was, she had to admit, looking a bit shabby. She had bought two smart new outfits when she was working for Marjorie but they were too tight now for her growing bulk. It was back to cast-offs, especially for maternity clothes. Grace, standing by her mother’s side, round-eyed and subdued by the unfamiliar surroundings, wasn’t much better. She seemed to be growing out of her clothes every second week.

The clerkess bristled. Kate didn’t work too hard to hold back a smile.

‘Then I hand the letter in to you, do I? Thanks for your help.’

She turned on her heel. She wasn’t going to wait to be dismissed. Her feet, at least, were still well-shod - until her ankles began to swell, that was. Oh, the joys of pregnancy!

‘Mrs Baxter, is it?’ the girl called after her.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Kate went back to the counter which separated enquirers from the office staff.

The girl was consulting a file. She looked very important. She kept Kate waiting just a little too long as she scanned a list of names. Two could play at that game. Kate tapped her fingers on the highly polished oak of the counter. Eventually Miss Frilly Blouse looked up.

‘You don’t seem to have made any claim on your husband’s pay, heretofore.’

Heretofore
? Oh dear, she did have a bad case of self-importance.

‘No, I haven’t. I fail to see that it’s any of your business.’

The sharp eyes swept over her. ‘All I’m saying is that most people do. You’re quite unusual.’

‘My dear young lady,’ said Kate Baxter, with all the haughtiness of her twenty-four years, ‘I’m so glad you’re able to recognize that. Good afternoon.’

It took her several attempts to get the letter right. In the first one she poured everything out, begged his forgiveness for what she had done, told him how much she loved him and pleaded with him to come home. She didn’t correct a thing. It was all from the heart. She was on the point of putting it in the envelope when it suddenly occurred to her that Robbie’s might not be the first eyes to see her words. What if the letter followed him about from port to port or, horror of horrors, was returned to Glasgow, where Miss Frilly Blouse might open it?

She wrote a second one, more restrained this time.
Dear Robbie
, she started, and then remembered how he had asked her not to call him by his name that dreadful day.
Dear Robert
, then? She could hardly put Dear Mr Baxter. In the end she put nothing, just started the letter at the top of the page, below the Yoker address.

When she got to the end of the second page - the first letter had been four pages long - she encountered a similar problem to the one she’d had at the top. What should she put? She’d written
All my love, Kate
, on the first one. She considered some others:
Your loving wife, Kate
. Lots of love from Kate. She had no reason to believe that he wanted to think of her in that way any more.

In the end, she wrote a brief one-page letter which told him very little.

This is to let you know that we have moved back to stay with my folks. I have given up the tenancy at Kilbowie Road. I have not drawn anything on your pay but may have to if we get really stuck. I hope you will not mind that too much.

There is no word of work starting again on the 534 although everybody is hoping that it will not be long. I have seen Mary and Peter Watt a few times. It looks like being quite a hot summer this year.

We are all well and hope that you are too.

Kathleen Baxter.

Kathleen Baxter. That was a daft way to sign herself. The whole letter was daft. She hadn’t even told him that Mr Asquith had died, hadn’t mentioned Grace by name, hadn’t asked him when he was coming home ...

She hadn’t the heart to redo it, and he did need to know where they were. She supposed. She took the letter up to Miss Frilly Blouse, who accepted it as though it were something contagious and sniffily informed Kate that it could take a long time to reach the recipient.

It did not, however, take that long. The colourful postcards started coming to Yoker, but still always addressed only to Grace, never to her mother. She read them anyway, hungry to touch something which he had touched. His messages to Grace were brief but cheerful. Hope you like the stamps on this card, sweetheart. I picked them especially. He sent her pictures of towns and cities along the eastern seaboard of the United States: New York, Boston, Portland. He always signed himself
R. Baxter.
Kate agonized for hours over that and came to absolutely no conclusion at all.

‘Hello there, lass. How were the bairns the day?’

Jessie took off her hat and hung up her coat, smiling at her father as she did so.

‘Och, just the usual, Daddy - although Douglas MacPherson surpassed himself. First he dipped Lizzie Beaton’s pigtails in the inkwell, then he put itching powder down the back of another wee boy’s trousers while we were out in the playground having rounders.’

Neil Cameron threw his head back and laughed. ‘Did you leather him, hen? Give him a touch o’ the tawse?’

‘Jessie doesn’t believe in using the belt, Daddy,’ put in Kate, throwing her sister a teasing smile. ‘She’s all for psychology. Isn’t that right, Jess? Did you have a long serious talk with wee Douglas and make him see the error of his ways?’

‘I did,’ said Jessie, her mouth set in an expression of mock-severity. ‘Sit down, Kate, and I’ll bring you your tea. I got some nice tea-bread at the Co-op on my way home.’

‘Shall I put it out on the plates?’

Jessie pointed sternly at the armchair. ‘Sit, Kate Baxter. Dae as yer tellt.’

‘Yes, miss,’ Kate said, suiting the action to the words.

Neil Cameron’s eyes twinkled as he looked at his two daughters.

‘Well, I don’t know about the scholars,’ he said in his soft Highland lilt, ‘but the fearsome Miss Cameron certainly scares me half to death.’ He patted his knee, and Grace clambered up on it. ‘D’ye not think your Auntie’s a terrifying woman, young Grace?’ He rolled the double r in ‘terrifying’, bending forward and shaking his head from side to side as he said it.

‘You’re silly, Grandad,’ chortled Grace, laughing up into his face.

‘You see?’ he said to Lily, who, engrossed in some mending, had taken no part in the conversation. ‘All the women in my family think I’m daft.’ He put his arm round Grace’s waist and smiled broadly at her.

‘Aye, well,’ said Lily, not raising her head. ‘Does that no’ tell ye something?’

Neil’s smile faded.

‘So,’ asked Kate, comfortably ensconced in the armchair with a stool at her feet. ‘Did wee MacPherson see the error of his ways, Jessie?’

Jessie, distributing slices of fruit loaf, smiled grimly.

‘Not exactly. Half an hour after I gave him the talking-to, I found him dipping another girl’s pigtails in the inkwell. So then I leathered him - the wee toerag.’

Kate and Neil burst out laughing.

‘So where’s your psychology now, lassie?’

Jessie threw up her hands. ‘I know, I know. That’s only the second time since I started that I’ve used the belt. I hate doing it - but that child will be the death of me, he really will.’

While Neil was singing and talking nonsense to his granddaughter, Kate tried to reassure her sister that she wasn’t a monster because she’d delivered three of the best to wee MacPherson.

‘There’s no badness in him, Kate,’ Jessie explained. ‘It’s just mischief - and he’s a clever wee soul. He was funny after I’d belted him.’

‘Did he cry?’

‘Damn’ the fear of it,’ said Jessie. ‘No, he went all pale and noble. Told me he understood why I’d felt the need to do it.’

Kate’s eyes opened wide in delight.

‘So he made you feel guilty instead of him?’ she suggested. ‘Maybe it’s wee MacPherson who’s using the psychology, Jess.’

Jessie grinned. ‘Aye, that child will go far, you mark my words. Right up on his high horse he was.’

‘Well, we can all do that, I suppose,’ said Kate, wetting her finger and picking up the last bits of fruit loaf from her plate. She sighed. She hadn’t felt so relaxed in months. She’d needed a good laugh. She started telling Jessie about the girl in the shipping company office when she had gone to enquire about how to send a letter to Robbie. It had all been very raw at the time, but she was beginning to see the funny side of it now.