A Scots Quair (93 page)

Och, she was silly to think that in this case of her little lad whom those beasts had mistreated—though he'd had no great mistreating, he'd told her, he was fine and would soon be about again.

She heard the sound of footsteps coming from the house and looked up and saw, and looked down again. And she thought with a whimsical, cool dismay it was funny she couldn't be letten a-be even out in the yard—a sore-harried body! And the whimsy went, she was cool and kind.

Ay, mistress, I want a bit crack with you
.

—
Yes, Ake
.

He blew out a cloud of smoke, brushed it aside, he was standing with his big, well-blacked boots unlaced, his waistcoat open, his mouser well-curled, undisturbed, unhur- rying, she felt his gaze on the side of her face. And he said they'd held up this business of a decision while he'd loaned her the money to carry on the house and ward off Mistress Cleghorn's holy bitch of a niece: but now came an accounting one way or the other:
Are you going to have me, then, as your
man?

And Chris unbent from the hoe and turned to him and that thing that had once been a poet in Ake's heart and was strangled with rage ere it ever reached vision, started sudden within him, oh bonny she was, sulky and gay with her bonny bronze hair. And she said, quiet and sweet, Yes, if he'd have her. She was nothing of a bargain for all that he'd done.

He thought through the dark of every night
Oh God, if only I
could sleep!
And sleep came seldom, hour on hour, while he fought to lock back in his memory those pictures: pictures of himself in that prison cell, in the hands of the bobbies while they mauled him about, pictures … and he'd cover his face
with his hands, bury his face in the pillow to forget the sick shame of it. He, Εwan Tavendale, held like a beast, his body uncovered and looked upon, jeered at, smeared with the foulness of those filthy eyes as battered by their filthy hands, held and tormented like a frog in the hands of a gang of school-kids. His body that once he'd hardly known, so easy and cool and sweet-running it had been: now in the dark it was a loathsome thing that he lay within, a foul thing he didn't dare look upon.

In the grip of that fear he locked his room every night, went about the house swathed up to the chin, Chris was watching, she'd know, Chris or else Ellen. Ellen and he once—sickening to think of, filthy and dirty, lips like hers on his….
Oh, God, please let me sleep!

Jim Trease called in that day with the news that the strike at last had come to an end, he sat with Ewan in the sitting-room, big, heavy and red, his little eyes twinkling. They'd all gone back and were cheerily at work making their armament bits again—'twas even said that Gowans were to install a gas-loading plant soon. Oh, the strikers had got the speeding up slowed down and a bit of an increase on all the piece-rates, Bolivia and Japan were in a hell of a stamash to get arms: and Gowans were dancing in tune.

—
And I went through what I did—just for that?

Jim Trease nodded, Ay, just for that. And for just the same kind of result he'd been going through the like things a good fifteen years—living on pay a little better than a Broo man's, working out his guts for those thick-witted sods…. He twinkled his eyes and smoked his cigarette, looking like a Christmas pig, Ewan thought, with some foolish toy stuck in its mouth by a butcher…. And he'd do it another fifteen years till the bobbies got him down in some bit of a riot and managed to kick in his skull, he supposed—
For it's me and
you are the working-class, not the poor Bulgars gone back to
Gowans
. And suddenly was serious an untwinkling minute:
A hell of a thing to be History, Ewan!

And for awhile his words and the image they painted abided with Ewan when Trease himself had gone shambling
away across Windmill Place, turning, stout, shabby, to wave ta-ta. A hell of a thing to be History!—not a student, a historian, a tinkling reformer, but living history oneself, being it, making it, eyes for the eyeless, hands for the maimed!—

And then he was shrinking back from the window at the sight of Ellen; but she'd seen him; waved. And across his memory there swept again, picture on picture, an obscene film, something they'd stick in him while he writhed, a bobby's hand—

Ewan!

He kept his face buried in his arms, feeling her arms around him, tight, her hair against his cheek, shivering away from the touch of that. And he said to her
Go away!
and she wouldn't, kept close to him, holding him, shaking him:
Ewan, listen, you're to tell me what's wrong with you — what
I've done that you avoid me like this. Ewan, do you hate me so
much and so suddenly?

He told her he didn't hate her at all, it was just that he was white-livered, he supposed. And sat up and pushed her away, not looking at her, looking a boy still, with the scar down his temple healed by now. Ewan scarred: last time it had been the keelies, this time the police: who next? and she shuddered as he himself had done. And then in the queerest fashion it came to her that she knew what was wrong, suddenly, she tingled with a blush that spread all over her body, neck, cheek and breast, goodness knew how far, a blush of unbearable shame and compassion: Oh Ewan, poor Ewan!

But she didn't say that, crouched beside him with her chin in her hands looking at him and loving him so that she almost wept; and was desperate while her mind sought round and round for a way to get at him, to help him.

And slowly, with a queer unemotion, she realized the only way—if she'd take it for him.

He'd sat staring out of the window the while, now she ran to that window and pulled open the curtains and stared up at the sky. April was in, the weather would keep all day she thought:
Ewan, what are you doing this weekend?

He said Nothing. Read a book. Hadn't an idea.

—
I want to go out a long ride on a bus. Somewhere. I get so
sick of Duncairn. Will you come with me?

—
Oh, if you like. I'll be poor enough company
.

She said she'd risk that, she'd go and find out about the buses. Would he be ready in an hour's time?

It felt the most crowded hour of her life, dragging on her hat and running from the house down to the bus-stance in Royal Mile, long lines of buses like dozing dragons, the drivers yawning and staring at the sky, staring at newspapers, buses innumerable, with all signs on them: where would she go? Then she saw a bus with glen dye upon it, and she'd never been there, it was safe enough. So she found out the time when the bus was to start, the conductor said in a fifty minutes—
Don't be late, are you bringing your lad?
And Ellen said
Quite
and smiled at him, a bonny black pussy-cat of a creature, he straightened his tie and looked after her—'Od, keeks of that kind were unco scarce.

But Ellen had scrambled aboard a tram, it shoomed down the Mile as though knowing her haste, she stared in the gaudy windows of Woolies—would that do? for she hadn't much money to waste.

So she hurried in and looked in the trays, at the glitter, at the dull dog eyes of the girl at the counter, and foolishly felt sick, sentimental idiot. No, she wouldn't, she'd get it real, silly though that was!

Out of Woolies and off the Mile and found a passable place in George Street, and went in there, into a great clicking of clocks and watches, glimmer of silver, and bought what she wanted, and came out in the flying sun-scud of Spring.
What
next?—This'll try your courage, my girl
.

It did, but she stuck it, looking cool as a cucumber, the shopkeeper an elderly, slow-moving man, he listened to her wants in the little shop with the ghastly books and the half-hid door, and said he thought another thing better. Had she ever tried it? And showed it to her, and Ellen said she hadn't, was it really good? And the shopman said Ay,
unemotional as a boiled turnip, he could recommend that. And Ellen said
Thanks, I'll have it then. And I'm in a hurry
. And he said
Fine weather
.

Back to the Mile. And now—what else? Rucksacks? She'd one of her own, Ewan hadn't, Woolies again and get one for him. Running up through the crowds she looked at her watch and found she had still a half-hour to spare, saw her face as she whipped into Woolies, flushed and dark, that hair on her upper lip horrid in a way, Spanish and nice in another way. Rucksack and straps and she was digging out the sixpences, three of them, and had the thing tied up in paper. Now for Windmill Place again and see Chris after she'd bought some chocolates and fruit.

Running up the door-steps she peeped through the window and saw Ewan sitting where she had left him, staring out, that nerved her for the thing she'd to do. She ran up to his room and looked quick about and saw the old wardrobe hid in the corner and opened the packet she'd bought from Woolies and stuffed in things from the wardrobe, quick, stopping and listening for feet on the stairs. Then into her own room like a burglar, quiet, panting and working there like a fury, running to and fro and cramming her knapsack, anything forgotten?—Oh Lord, the things from the little shop! Here they were, safe, cheers, that was all.

Chris was making scones in the kitchen when Ellen looked in, looked sweeter than ever, Ellen thought, lovely those tall Scotch cheekbones, nice sulky face.

Hello, Ellen lass, come for a scone?

Ellen said she hadn't, but she'd eat one, though; and sat on the table, eating it, and they smiled one at the other, mistrust long past. And Ellen said
Mrs Colquohoun, Ewan's not well
.

The lovely, sulky face went dark in a minute, like her son's then despite all the differences.
Where is he?—Oh, nothing
new happened. But ever since that time in the jail. I want to take
him out to the country—somewhere; and I want to know if you'll
mind
.

Chris looked at her a minute and then laughed, saying they surely could go where they liked, they were neither of them
bairns, Ellen nodded and jumped off the table.
I know. But I
don't know if we'll be back tonight
.

And then she thought Ewan's mother understood, her eyes changed and grew darker and glassed over with gold in that way that Ellen had seen before. She said quietly and kindly:
I
won't worry. But, Ellen
—

—
Yes?

—
It's your life and his, but I think I ken Ewan. He's like this
for the time, but he won't be long. And when he's once better …
he's a funny lad. I don't think he'll ever be any lass's lad
.

For a second Ellen felt cold to her spine. True in a way—and she didn't care! Chris liked the gay smile on the scared pussy-face:
We're only going hiking. Bye-bye, Mrs
Colquohoun
.

Plodding teams blue steam in the parks as the fat bus grunted up the Hill of Barras, Ellen beside Ewan looked up a moment, he'd just asked, in his soft Scotch voice and as though wakening up, what were a couple of rucksacks for?

She said
For fun. I've brought some lunch
.

Below them all the eastwards Howe lay spread, grey saffron and thinly wooded, cold-gleaming under the quick Spring sun—a bare and wild and uncanny land, she'd never be at home here she thought with a shiver, though she trilled her r's and lived to be a hundred. Hideous country, ragged and cruel … but Ewan's shoulder against hers sweet.

And Ewan looked out and saw the Howe and far away high in the air beyond the cold parks and the dark little bourochs of nestling trees under the lithe of the shining hills, the line of the mountains, crested in snow, unmelting, Trusta Peak over High Segget, the round-breasted hills like great naked women waking and rising, tremendous, Titanic. Watching, Ellen saw his face suddenly darken, she said
Headache going?
and he answered her hardly (poor Ewan!)
Yes. I'm all right
.

Down by the Pitforthies and by Meikle Fiddes into the main road winding broad, chockablock with traffic tearing south, loaded lorries and glistening cars, swaying shapes of the great Dundee-Aberdeen buses squattering the ancient
tracks of the Howe. Cattle were out from the winter byres, flanks laired in sharn and eating like mad on the thin, lush pastures that couched from the wind under the shelter of the olive-green firs. With a chink and a gleam and a slow, canny stamping the ploughmen faced up against far braes, the dirl of little stones pattered the windscreen as the bus ran through a great skellop of tar, roadmenders resting and giving them a wave, every soul in a fairly fine tune today.

And then, queerly and suddenly, Ewan's heart moved. He said to Ellen:
We're into Kinraddie
.

She'd never heard of it, he'd been born here, away up in a little farm in the hills, they'd see the place in a minute or so. And sure so they did, ringed round with its beech, Blawearie wheeling and unfolding, high, Εwan minded a day as a little lad standing by the side of his mother by the hackstock and watching a man in a soldier's gear going out of the close and not looking back: and his mother paying no heed to the man, the man's hands trembling as he fastened the gate…. So bright and near and close was the picture he shook his head to shake it away, he'd never remembered it before. That man—his father, he supposed, in the days of the War, going to the War, had he and Chris quarrelled? … Long ago, it had nothing to do with him.

His movement made Ellen ask if he was cold, and he turned and looked into her face, bright, flushed, little beads of sweat along her dark brows, she had opened the neck of her dress, skin warm and olive, he stared at that, looked like silk, maybe felt like it to touch. She asked, peeping a smile, if there was a smut on her nose? and saw the grey-gold eyes lose their dull film a moment. He said
Nice of you to take me out.
No, I'm not cold—and there isn't a smut. Devil of a stour this bus
is raising!