When the Lights Come on Again (12 page)

Liz blinked. It wasn’t like her father to be jokey in any way, shape or form. Whatever his news was, it had to be very good indeed.

‘I’ve been studying, Father.’ Eddie put a paper marker in the book, closed it and reached behind him to place it on the sideboard. ‘For an essay I’ve to write on the causes of the Great War.’

Sadie, her preparations complete, smoothed the back of her skirt and sat down. Lifting the pot, she began pouring the tea. Her husband gave a long sigh.

‘How many times do I have to tell you? I like my milk in first!’

‘I’m sorry, William,’ she said, half rising from the chair she’d only just sat down in. ‘I forgot I’ll get a fresh cup.’

‘Sit down, woman!’

Sadie subsided into her chair.

‘What is your news, Father?’ Liz asked quickly. Anything to deflect the irritation from her mother. He might be in an unusually good mood, but he was still snapping at her. Liz supposed it had become a habit he couldn’t break: one he didn’t want to break. Fortunately he was unable to keep his news to himself for a moment longer.

‘I have this evening been to a meeting called by yard management for senior foremen and managers,’ he said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice that he now belonged to this august group. ‘Then, together with the management representatives, we all repaired to a public house for a small refreshment.’

Across the table, Eddie gave Liz an unobtrusive wink. William MacMillan had a tendency to use pompous language, which his children, with the cruelty of youth, had an equal tendency to laugh at.

Liz gave Eddie the ghost of a smile back, along with the silent signal which meant, We’ll have a laugh about this later.

‘The order books are full,’ William MacMillan announced, finally getting his big news out. ‘There’s work assured for the next five years. At least.’

‘That is good news,’ said Liz, and meant it. Anyone who had grown up anywhere along the Clyde knew the importance of a full order book.

She had been eleven when work had stopped on the 534. Now the ship which had borne that job number for so many years was the
Queen Mary
, the greatest passenger liner ever to sail the Atlantic. Since then another
Queen
had been ordered. She was nearing completion, her launch due to take place any day now.

People seemed to have forgotten the hard times, the two years during which this new ship’s predecessor had lain rusting on the stocks at John Brown’s, when Cunard had run out of money to build her and the whole workforce had been laid off. Liz would never forget those years, though. Never.

It had been shortly before Christmas 1931. She and Eddie, sliding along the icy patches on the pavements which all the feet before them had polished to thrilling - if hazardous - perfection, had come bounding into the close at Radnor Street. They were as high as kites as they ran up the stairs because it was nearly time for school to break up for the holidays. Then, bursting into the house, they had seen their parents’ faces.

Both William and Sadie MacMillan had been white to the lips, staring silently at each other from their chairs on either side of the range, her mother tearful and her father...

How had her father looked that day? Buttoned up, tight ... humiliated. At that age Liz hadn’t known what the word meant, but she had understood the feeling it described, had seen with painful clarity that William MacMillan was crushed by the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be able to support his family, that he was dreading the inevitability of having to go on the parish and accept the meagre dole money which would be offered.

Liz knew the importance of a full order book, all right So did her mother.

‘Oh, aye, William,’ Sadie was saying warmly. ‘That’s great news.’

He actually smiled at them both, and for a moment there was unusual unanimity in the MacMillan household. Then Eddie spoiled it all.

‘And do any of you know why the order books are full?’

His tone of voice was ostensibly calm, but as she turned to look at him, Liz realized that he wasn’t calm at all. He was furiously angry - and upset.

‘The books are full because the Clyde’s getting ready to go to war. Along with every other shipbuilding river in the country. That’s why. The mobilization has started. The river’s running to war.’

Startlingly pale, his voice shaking with emotion, he waved an unsteady hand towards the history book lying on the sideboard.

‘Wasn’t the last time bad enough? Haven’t we learned anything? No. We’re rushing headlong towards it: to bombs and fires and destruction. It’ll be even worse this time. Everyone will be involved: killed and maimed while they’re sitting at their own firesides. Like in Spain.’

His voice quivered with passion. ‘Can none of you see that? Are you all blind as well as stupid?’

‘Och, Grandad,’ said Liz, reporting it all to Peter MacMillan the next evening. ‘It was terrible. They kept shouting at each other and then Eddie stomped out of the house and didn’t come back till after midnight, and Father waited up for him and then they shouted at each other some more and Ma was crying all the time - oh, it was terrible!’

Peter MacMillan patted her shoulder before sitting down opposite her in front of the range. ‘There, there, lass. They’re too much like each other, that’s the trouble. Both hotheads.’

‘My father?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘A hothead?’

‘Your father has strong feelings,’ said her grandfather. ‘About a lot of things.’

‘He keeps them well hidden then,’ said Liz. She raised her arms, clasping them together on the nape of her neck, lifting her heavy hair. ‘I wish he wasn’t so against Catholics, either.’

Peter gave her a shrewd look. ‘You’re not walking out with a Catholic lad, are you, Lizzie?’

‘No, it’s not that. I’m not walking out with anybody.’

She told him about Helen, and their developing friendship. ‘If he knew I’d got friendly with a Catholic lassie—’ Liz stopped, a wave of anxiety flooding over her.

‘He’d try to stop you from seeing her?’

‘And the rest,’ she said drily. ‘I’d never hear the end of it. So I haven’t told him, and I feel like I’m denying her.’ She gave her grandfather a half-smile. ‘And I cannae invite her home because he’d have to know what her surname is and then he’d know that she’s a Catholic - and I feel bad about that too. Her family have been real hospitable to me.’

‘You can invite your friends here any time, Lizzie,’ said Peter stoutly. ‘You know that, hen. Don’t you?’

‘Aye, Grandad,’ Liz said, her voice soft. ‘I know that. And I appreciate it. I really do.’

Peter shook his white head. ‘I don’t know how your Granny and I managed to produce a child with ideas like your father has. As the Bard said, “we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns”,’ he declaimed, quoting one of Robert Burns’ most famous lines. ‘How we raised a bigot I’ll never know.’

‘You did your best, Grandad,’ said Liz, edging herself gingerly back into her chair. It might be the end of July, but the range was lit, her grandfather using the excuse of the wet summer. She’d lay a bet the
Queen Mary
’s engine room wasn’t any hotter than this. ‘Calling him William Wallace MacMillan was a good start.’

Her grandfather’s face lit up. ‘Aye, that was your Granny’s idea - to call him after the national hero. We visited the Wallace monument at Stirling when we were courting, you know. She was scared, but I managed to persuade her to climb to the top.’

He turned his face towards the open fire in the middle of the range. ‘She always rose to a challenge. Even if it scared her.’ He paused, gazing into the flames. His blue eyes, normally piercing and intense, went soft and dreamy. ‘
Especially
if it scared her.’

Before Liz could think of something comforting to say, his head snapped up again. ‘You’re like her, lass.’ Liz felt a warm glow which had nothing to do with the heat from the fire. ‘Now, of course,’ Peter went on, ‘your father forgets about the Wallace, likes to think he’s called after King Billy. As if Jenny and I would have done any such thing!’

Liz allowed herself an inner smile at the indignation evident in his voice.

‘Shall I make the tea?’ she suggested, sitting up in her chair.

‘Damn the fear of it. You sit there and make yourself comfortable and I’ll see to it. You’ve had a long day, pet.’

Resisting the temptation to help him, Liz did as she was bid. It was a novelty to be waited on, after all. In her own home, the division of labour was strictly traditional - which basically meant that she and her mother did all the housework.

Her grandfather, on the other hand, had always done his best to be helpful around the house. Right now he was cutting some of Sadie’s fruit loaf which Liz had brought with her. The slices were a bit thick, but he put them out neatly on a plate with a wee paper doily underneath them. Keeping up Granny’s standards. That brought a lump to Liz’s throat.

‘So, hen,’ Peter said once they were both settled opposite each other, ‘what else have you been up to lately? The Red Cross exercise is still going ahead?’

‘Yes, Grandad,’ she said. ‘It’s all arranged.’ He’d already promised to be one of the volunteer casualties. ‘And Helen and Eddie and I are going to the Empire Exhibition this weekend.’ She took a small bite of fruit loaf and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘At least I think we are. If Eddie’s still speaking to me, that is.’

Ten

Considering the upsets of the week, Saturday started well enough. However, the day wasn’t very old before Liz was seriously wondering if it was too much to hope for that a great big hole might open up in the middle of Bellahouston Park into which she could conveniently slide. Her dismay had nothing to do with the exhibition itself. That was as exciting as everybody had said it was. No, her problem was with Helen and Eddie.

It had looked promising at first. Apart from the expected acerbic comments about the British Empire, Eddie was on his best behaviour. He had even laughed out loud at something: the giant model of a merino sheep on top of the Wool Pavilion.

There was a minor hiccup when Helen mentioned the forthcoming Red Cross exercise, asking innocently if he was going to be one of the volunteer casualties.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said, enunciating each word of his answer so carefully and with such a sarcastic edge to his voice that Liz could cheerfully have thumped him one.

On the plus side, judging by the look on his face, he obviously thought that his sister’s friend was a very pretty girl. Sensing the embarrassment that might cause him and knowing how shy he could be with the opposite sex, Liz wasn’t therefore too bothered when conversation on the tram going to Bellahouston was polite but stilted. They needed time to get used to each other, that was all.

Casting around for subjects of conversation, they started on the journey itself. Being Bankies, they had been born and brought up on the north bank of the Clyde. Travelling to the south side of Glasgow was a big adventure. The two halves of the city seldom visited each other.

The tram itself was one of the new ones, its design very much in the modern style, built to commemorate the crowning of the new King and known therefore as Coronation Class.

‘It’s a streamlined design, of course,’ Eddie explained to both girls, ‘for style and speed.’ His tone was a little too patient - as though he were explaining some terribly complicated machinery to small children who couldn’t possibly be expected to grasp anything overly technical.

‘A bit like Flash Gordon’s spaceship then,’ said Helen contemplatively. ‘Or the Mallard. Apparently the streamlining of the locomotive was an important contributory factor towards the breaking of the speed record.’ Helen turned to Liz. ‘A hundred and twenty-six miles per hour, you remember, Liz? That Nigel Gresley, he really knows his onions.’

‘Ah, yes...’ said Eddie. He looked startled.

Liz exchanged a look with Helen, noted the mischievous glint in her baby-blue eyes and knew she was amused that Eddie was quite obviously struggling to come to terms with the fact that she possessed some brains. Modern men. Huh! They were as bad as the Victorians. But if Helen were disposed to laugh at Eddie, that was surely better than finding him irritating - which was what Liz had feared might happen.