The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow (31 page)

Dot looked tearfully at me while John gazed at his feet as if he had suddenly developed eleven toes. I noticed the highly polished russet brown shoes that I had last seen by the bench at Riverside.

Fay Pringle smiled and asked me to sit down. She came straight to the point. ‘James and I were wondering if you could tell Dot what kind of woman Margot is.’

Dot continued to look at me and I was momentarily speechless. What did Maddie’s mum want me to say?

Noticing my hesitation, she said, ‘Just tell Dot the truth, Ann.’

And I did. I held nothing back. I told her about how callous she had been over her late husband Harry’s death – a death that put her within reach of Dad. I told them about her stealing my money from the savings jar and also the horrible abuse of Lily at her hands. I mentioned her treatment of a husband who had turned up at our door a few years ago. How she had spent all his money before disappearing and how she had treated her latest husband, Victor Jones, by embezzling five thousands pounds and how good he had been to her, providing her with a house and job in Edinburgh. What I didn’t mention was the short affair John had had with her or the conversation Rosie, Dad and I heard at Maddie and Danny’s wedding. He had been foolish but then so had a lot of men, Dad included. He had been truly hoodwinked by her.

‘She’s nothing but a common criminal,’ I told them. ‘She’s a bigamist, a liar and a thief, albeit a pretty one. The only reason she married my father was because he was daft enough to mention my inheritance from Mrs Barrie. He never mentioned how much so maybe she thought she would get her greedy little hands on a lot of money. Well, she was sorely mistaken.’

Suddenly James Pringle burst into laughter and we all looked at him. ‘I can see she was mistaken in taking you on, Ann. You were more than a match for her.’

The mood in the room seemed to lift and Dot, who had stayed silent all through my tirade, now smiled. She said quietly, ‘So what my husband says is true? She’s a wicked woman?’

For the first time, I laughed. ‘It’s not only your husband, Mrs Pringle, who’d say so but also my sister Lily and my dad and his lovely wife Rosie. No doubt, if we all had enough time, we could maybe dredge up a few more names but why bother? Rosie says she’ll get her comeuppance and I hope she does.’

Dot thanked me and I left the room but, before I reached the door, I turned. ‘This conversation will be in confidence and I’ll never mention a word about it. Margot has caused so much mayhem that it’s a shame to let her continue to do so in her absence.’

I left soon after that and it was another week before I met up with Danny again. We were both doing some work at his shop and he said, ‘John and Dot are back together again. We’ve no idea what you said to them but things are back to normal, thank goodness.’

I was busy washing the floor of the back shop and I was on my knees beside the bucket. I looked up at him. ‘That’s good news, Danny, but I only told them the truth.’

He looked at the big clock which was a leftover relic from the previous owner. ‘Maddie wondered if you could maybe pick Daniel up from the school, Ann. she has to go to a Red Cross meeting with her mum.’

I stood up. ‘On one condition only, Danny.’

He said, ‘What’s that?’

‘That you come with me.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t want the other parents at the school gate to see Daniel upset. He’ll be looking for his mum or his grandmother.’

‘Well, I’m only going if you come as well,’ I said, giving him no option but to agree.

Snow had started to fall earlier in the day and there was a thick covering on the ground. As we slowly trudged towards the school, Danny looked more and more apprehensive. By the time we reached the gate a few minutes before the school came out, it had started to snow again. We joined the group of people who stood waiting patiently on the pavement, all of us huddled up against the snowstorm.

Then the doors opened and the children poured out, their hats and scarves making a bright splash of colour on this grey, snowy day. We saw Daniel and I called over. For a moment he stayed still as his eyes scanned the playground in search of his mother or grandmother. He walked slowly forward but kept his eyes averted from Danny.

Suddenly Danny picked up a handful of snow, formed it into a ball and threw it at his son. Daniel’s eyes widened in shock as he gazed at us both. For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to burst into tears but then he bent down and made a big snowball and threw it at Danny. His father then made an even bigger ball and launched it at his son where it spilled all over his school coat. Running across the playground, Daniel scooped up more snow and threw it at his father. Danny chased Daniel over the deep snow and when he caught him they both fell down and rolled in the snow, laughing as they gambolled in the deep drifts.

When they finally stood up, Daniel’s eyes were shining. ‘That was great fun, Daddy. Can we go sledging after we get home?’

I saw tears in Danny’s eyes as he gazed at his son. Then he smiled as he put his arm around his shoulder. He said cheerfully, ‘Yes, we can and we’ll also make a huge snowman and use your Grandad’s golfing hat and his old pipe.’

Later, I was to remember that day and bless the sudden snowstorm for breaking the stalemate between father and son. And I knew Maddie and her parents thought the same.

It was the middle of March and it was still snowing. The streets were thick with brown, wet slush and there were mini mountains of dirty snow piled up at the kerbs. Even the children who had initially greeted the snow with joyful exuberance were now also tired of the relentless heavy snow that fell from the sky, endlessly.

Danny had opened his shop at the beginning of the year and, after a slow start, it was now beginning to get more trade. People commented on his bright cheery shop and its helpful owner but he thought the growing trade came mainly from the closures of two other small grocer’s shops further up the Hawkhill. The customers from these shops changed their ration books to Danny’s shop which helped him increase his takings.

He was quite content to let his business grow slowly but steadily because, as he had said, once the rationing was over, people would be desperate to buy all the longed-for items that had been denied them during the war years.

Still, during the long, dark, snowy days of March, we were all struggling to survive. Because of the icy cold weather, the coalmen couldn’t get the coal out of the railway yards and there was now a shortage of fuel which added to the other shortages and made life difficult.

Lily and I were worried about Granny. She hadn’t seen her coalman for three weeks. One night, during a blizzard, we carried over some of our coal to the Overgate to make sure she had a small fire. Her kitchen wasn’t very warm but she had gone to bed with a hot-water bottle and she was sitting up reading her book. We had filled two message bags with coal and we deposited it in the coal scuttle.

‘We’ll bring over some coal every night, Granny, just to make sure you have a fire every day,’ I said.

Granny was worried. ‘But what about yourselves? Have you got enough?’

We assured her we had which wasn’t the truth but we could also go to bed and snuggle up together in our bed settee.

Meanwhile, Connie was hardly ever in the shop during this wintry weather and I was running it myself which, I had to admit, I liked. I missed her company but I still had Joe every morning who was, as usual, the oracle.

‘I see the farmers can’t dig the tatties and neeps from the ground because it’s frozen. There’s going to be a shortage because of this awful weather.’ He gazed morosely through the window at the curtain of snow that fell from a leaden sky.

‘And nobody has any coal. I’m burning all my dross but, when that’s finished, there’s nothing left. We’ll all freeze to death and what does this government say about it? Damn little.’

I tried not to encourage him to get on to the subject of the government. It was a well-known fact that he didn’t support any of the political parties but that didn’t stop him being scathing about whoever was in power. He had been particularly venomous about the Labour Party landslide the previous year.

‘I see Manny Shinwell has nationalised the coal mines and now we can’t get any coal from the railway yards. Bloody disgrace!’ he said, rolling up a cigarette in his little Rizla machine before giving it a huge lick to stick it down.

I was always fascinated by his huge tongue and how delicately he could lick the strip of glue on the cigarette paper.

‘Never mind, Joe,’ I said, ‘life can only get better.’

He gave me a sour look. Optimists were people he disliked. Better to always look on the gloomy side of life and you would never be disappointed was his motto.

Well, I thought to myself, maybe he’s right. We’ll either freeze to death or starve. Potatoes and turnips were the great fillers in our diet as was bread which was also rationed. Yet how much better it was to smile and hope the worst was over. We had survived the war and the Margot affair although things were still strained in the Pringle marriage – a least that was the story according to Dad. Danny and Maddie kept a discreet silence about the whole sorry episode.

‘Put on a cheery face,’ I told Joe.

He gave me a doleful look and pointed with a large, bony hand towards the outside world. ‘Cheery? What is there to be cheery about?’ He sounded shocked by my frivolous request.

‘Well, I like to look on the cheery side,’ I said, with as much conviction as I could muster.

A week later, I was to remember my words and was grateful I hadn’t offered to eat them at the time. Kathleen dropped her bombshell and cheery faces were thin on the ground. Danny was the one to break the news to Granny, Lily and me after Kit and George had sent an urgent summons to him to come to see them at Lochee.

‘Kathleen is taking Kitty and going away to live in London,’ he said, as we sat at Granny’s meagre fire. ‘She’s going to live with a man called Chris Portland who’s the son of the photographer she worked for.’

I gasped and Danny gave me a sharp look. ‘You knew about this, didn’t you, Ann?’

I had to admit I did but I added, ‘I never thought she would go and live with him in London.’ And that was the truth.

‘Well, she leaves at the end of this week and nobody but us and Kit’s family know about it so keep it quiet. Kathleen is frightened that if Sammy gets to hear about her plans he’ll stop her.’

‘What does Kit think about her running away like this to live with another man, Danny?’ I asked. I was as shocked as the family and I couldn’t ever recall anybody doing such a drastic thing.

Danny looked sad. ‘She doesn’t like it at all and neither does her father but Kathleen has made her mind up and that’s that.’ He looked at me with his direct kind of stare and I realised anew how alike he and Kathleen were in looks. ‘She’s coming to see you tomorrow night. She wants to explain her actions and her side of the story.’

After he left, Granny said it was all very sad. ‘She should never have married Sammy. That was her biggest mistake but, unlike most women who make the same mistake, she’s not putting up with it. I have to say she’s either very brave or terribly stupid to run away like this.’

Amen, I thought.

Lily was agog at this news – this strange adult world that she was on the verge of entering. I warned her to keep quiet but I knew she wouldn’t say a word.

Kathleen appeared the following evening at Roseangle. She looked like a snowman when I answered the door and I felt terrible about the meagre fire but no doubt it would have been the same at Lochee. Snowflakes glittered on her red hair and her cheeks were glowing – either from the weather or love, it was difficult to say. She glanced at Lily, unsure about discussing personal matters in front of her. Lily noticed this and went into the bedroom to do her homework. A move I felt sorry for because we never used that room and it was freezing cold in there.

Kathleen came right to the point at once. ‘Chris has asked me to move in with him at his flat in London, Ann. I’m going and I’m taking Kitty with me.’

I was still unsure what to say but it didn’t really matter what I said as she had made up her mind weeks ago. Still, I had to say it. ‘Do you think that’s wise, Kathleen? I mean do you really know him that well?’

She shook her head and became thoughtful. ‘How well do we ever know anyone, Ann? You have to take your chances in life, I think. Make up your mind, grab your opportunities and make the decision.’

‘But what about Sammy? Will he not want to see Kitty? He’s going to make an awful fuss when he finds out.’

For the first time that evening, she laughed. ‘Well, I’ll be hundreds of miles away so it’ll not matter.’ She became serious again. ‘If there’s one thing this war has taught me, it is that life’s too short to be miserable all the time. Every minute I spend with Chris is wonderful and we get on so well together. He also adores Kitty so there’s no problem there. Since we got married, I haven’t spent one happy moment with Sammy – not one. If I told you that, would you believe me?’

I nodded.

‘I don’t want the Malloys to know where I am because they will make Mr Portland’s life a misery and he has a successful business to run. But he knows all about us and our decision and he’s fine about it. But, there again, he’s seen a lot of the world and how other folk live. He says lives shouldn’t be lived in precise wee boxes that turn into prisons – unlike Sammy who thinks he can go off to the pub every night then come home and knock me about and yet expect my undying love.’

There was nothing I could say. In private, I agreed with her but it was a very big step to take – to leave your husband and go and live with another man in a city that had been badly bombed as well. I told her this.

‘As I said earlier, Ann, Chris’s flat hasn’t been damaged and we’ll live there for the time being. Chris has been offered a job with a newspaper as a photographer and he’s thinking of accepting. He says his days of roaming around the world are over and it’s time to settle down.’

She stood up to go and at the door I gave her a big hug.