Capital Union, A (8 page)

The next day, although I was feeling a bit wabbit, Sylvia insisted on taking me to the zoo to cheer me up. She said all men were a worry to their wives, and sensible women sought their fun elsewhere. ‘Political animals are the worst,’ she said. ‘I should know, my father was one.’

She was a fast driver and was pleased with her car-share petrol allowance for driving for the Women’s Voluntary Service. By the time we climbed the stairs to the zoo entrance, I was feeling more excited. I wondered if the animals would look like they did in the films. I had seen Safari and was worried about meeting a lion. ‘It is supposed to be fun, Agnes,’ Sylvia said, taking my arm. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’

‘Are they all in cages?’ I asked.

‘Every last one,’ she replied.

There were a lot of children standing in rows as we passed through the pavilion and there was bunting everywhere as if it was a festival. The ticket lady at the turnstile told us it was a ‘Holiday at Home’ rally to raise morale. All the children were in their school uniforms with their little gas masks on straps over their shoulders.

‘Glad I tied the dogs up outside,’ whispered Sylvia, ‘they would have been far too excited by all these playmates to remember their manners. Let’s march up to the top of the hill
and then we can negotiate the crowds on the way down. It is pretty steep.’ She took my arm. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

A sea lion broke the surface of the pond as we passed, blowing air out through his whiskers and making me jump. ‘I thought it was for ducks,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

The flamingos were like pink chickens with long legs but she marched me on until we reached the parrots. Three tatty gentlemen sat on a dead branch in green coats arguing about whose perch it was. Their feathers were bedraggled and they looked towards us as if we could decide the matter. ‘You’ll have to sort it out yourselves, boys,’ said Sylvia, glancing down the hill at the first of the bairns to round the corner, and taking my arm.

As we walked on up the steep path, the sound of the wee ones grew fainter and she told me the Latin names of all the animals we passed. ‘Darwin’s Rhea,’ she said, looking into the grass of a cage that seemed empty. ‘A most unusual bird. The male sits on the nest. Old Darwin toddled round South America looking for it for six months, and was halfway through one at dinner before he realised it wasn’t chicken.’

I laughed and it felt good, but when I saw the gorilla in his cage I stopped. He was pulling at the hairs on his bald belly looking for fleas. I tried to pass him the chocolate that was still in my coat pocket, but Sylvia put a hand on my arm. ‘You’ll rot his teeth,’ she said. ‘He is more of a banana kind of a chap, although they seem to be to be in short supply in this blessed war. You’d think some seaman might have the nous to pick up a few as he sailed past Mombasa. Ships all over the world and we are eating from the hedgerows.’

I thought of the wild strawberries and my snare. ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said.

She sighed. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m having problems feeding myself and the dogs. They are hungry hunters, you know, and I can’t quite bring myself to squabble over bones at the butcher’s for them.’

‘I could get you a rabbit,’ I said.

‘From a magic hat?’ she asked, with a quizzical smile.

‘From the Blackford Hill. If you walk your dogs up there, I could give you one.’

‘Better get one for poor Douglas, too, then.’ We could see the prison below us in the distance.

‘I’ve just been to visit him.’

‘One of the privileged few. I hear it is hard to get a pass. How was he?’

‘Says he enjoys the garden party.’

She laughed. ‘Well, they left him his sense of humour. That helps.’

‘He’s translating Theognis in the evening.’

‘“Not heeding poverty that eats the heart, nor foes who slander me.” How very apt,’ she replied. ‘Strong personal
parallels
with Douglas’ situation. The past won’t save him, although it might do something for his sanity in the short term. You can’t keep a good academic down.’ She tapped her head. ‘It is the mind, you see, dear. Free ranging. Soars like a bird, although I haven’t done much soaring myself recently.’ She looked round at the animals and sighed again. The first of the children on the rally reached us.

‘You need a “Holiday at Home”,’ I said, pointing at one of the zoo’s banners.

‘I prefer Italy,’ she replied, ‘but at least the wee mites are enjoying it.’ One of the children was shouting, ‘Wake up!’ at a leopard. ‘They don’t know half the mess we are in, of course. Their mothers protect them from the worst of it. The mixed blessing of white lies.’

We found a bench and sat down. The city spread out below us.

‘But how are you?’ Sylvia asked, turning to me. ‘You look pale.’

I wondered if she could see right through me; see the word ‘traitor’ emerging on my forehead?

I wished I could tell her about the German. Sylvia misread my face. ‘The war will pass one day, my dear,’ she said. ‘All
these foolish tensions will be forgotten and we will be able to get on with our lives. We just have to hope Douglas will stop stoking old fires when this is over. Not sure independence is all that relevant now. Everyone wants to chum up with America. I believe Churchill has given Roosevelt a ninety-year lease to stick his planes here. Bit like an awkward lodger: pays well, but wants a say in the running of the house.’

She seemed to have forgotten Jeff was in the Party. I didn’t care about the Yanks.

‘Douglas wants Jeff to oversee a petition for his release,’ I said.

‘Does he indeed? I rather suspect he has had his go with the authorities.’

‘Jeff might be going to prison, too.’

‘That is the worst of it, all you young love birds being separated.’

‘I feel I have let him down.’ I wiped my eyes.

‘Nonsense, dear,’ Sylvia put her arm round me. ‘You are a good wife to Jeff and I am sure he loves you very much. You are very young. Wait until you see life through the far end of the telescope. These youthful days seem very small, like a silent movie.’ She laughed. ‘How would we write the captions if we could do it all again?’

I leant against her. Her tweed jacket smelt of dog but I didn’t mind. She gave me a squeeze. ‘Better trot on,’ she said.

Near a sign reading, ‘No species is an island’, we came to a standstill. There was a sea of children. ‘There must be
thousands
,’ Sylvia exclaimed.

A woman was making a speech from a platform draped with Union Jacks, and at her signal to the band, the bairns began to sing God Save the King. Their voices were light and rose up into the air. Sylvia got out her whistle.

For days after the trip to Glasgow, Jeff was filled with a
desperate
energy to save Douglas, and he helped a man called Dr MacIntyre organise a Sunday march to Saughton prison. ‘We’ll serenade Douglas and cock a snook at the authorities. Two birds with one stone,’ he said, pulling an old kilted skirt of his mother’s from the wardrobe. He insisted I wear its garish tartan even though I had to secure it at the waist with safety pins. ‘She was proud of being a McGregor,’ he said. ‘Now you are one by marriage.’

I looked like a tattieboggle pinned together in her old clothes, but I wanted to keep him happy. My secret upstairs would be safer if I did.

A small crowd had gathered on Longstone Road, which ran past the back of the prison. Jeff pointed out the poet Hugh McDiarmid to me. At a signal from a drum major, a piper stepped forward in full regalia and we marched as a ragtag army of old men, women with bare legs, and bairns up to the gate. The notes of Scots Wha Hae floated over the prison wall, and at one of the windows a handkerchief fluttered. ‘He has heard us,’ Jeff yelled, but I couldn’t make out which window it was. Men I recognised from the conference cheered and shouted, ‘Yours aye for Scotland, Douglas.’

A member of the committee began to speak. ‘Friends, we are gathered here today to serenade our Chairman, and while
away the heavy hours of his imprisonment in communion with him and his heartfelt nationalism. His stand tells the world that a sovereign nation will never bow to the will of Westminster, that a treaty, however old, cannot be thrown to the wind, and that a true Scot will never surrender to
oppression
, be it English or German.’

I had heard it all before. I felt my skirt slip on my hips and pulled it up. ‘Stop wriggling, Agnes,’ said Jeff.

I moved behind a woman with a pram to be out of sight. I’d wanted to wear my best dress in case Douglas was looking out, but I still couldn’t spot which window he was at. ‘Come here,’ said Jeff, the way Sylvia spoke to her dogs. I shook my head. He frowned and his eyes went hot under his hat. I didn’t want him to be angry when we got home, with Hannes just upstairs, so when the piper struck up A Man’s a Man for a’ That, I took his arm and sang at the top of my voice to please him. The notes soared above his baritone.

‘Same time next Sunday, folks,’ said the committee man. ‘Thank you for coming and showing your support for our dear Douglas.’

We waited a long time for a tram. Jeff stood up to get off at the West End and said he would walk over to the university. It was becoming a habit. ‘Maybe that outfit wasn’t the best choice,’ he said as he left, ‘although Mother always carried it off.’

I thought he had been leaning over to kiss me. It wasn’t just the things I said that got stuck in people’s teeth.

‘It was your idea,’ I said, but he moved off down the tram holding onto the rails.

At home, Mrs MacDougall’s door flew open as I went up the stairs. ‘I was hoping to catch you alone,’ she said. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’

‘A piece of ancient history,’ I replied.

‘Well, never mind that. How is our… new neighbour?’ She rolled her eyes to the landing above. ‘Still alive?’

I nodded.

‘Walking about?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Don’t give him too much to eat. He might get too strong.’

‘Don’t worry, Mrs MacDougall. I grew up on a farm with five brothers.’

‘Aye, but they weren’t…’ and she sketched a
Sieg Heil
in the air and mouthed the word ‘Nazis’. ‘They are fanatics, dear. They say Hitler is designing a rocket that could reach Scotland. The end is coming, Agnes.’

I opened my mouth to speak.

‘Oh, but I don’t mean you should feel guilty about what you are doing.’ She emphasised the word ‘you’. ‘God will
forgive
you for lifting the burden from his servant’s shoulders.’ Footsteps approached the stair and she slammed her door shut.

It was a boy with a telegram for Jeff. Strips of paper were pasted onto a cream sheet. The letters were typed in large print, confirming his hearing: ‘CO Tribunal Glasgow, Monday, at 11am.’ The last telegrams I had seen were at our wedding;
loving
greetings from Jeff’s family up north, and our family in Ireland. The war had stopped most of them travelling to be with us on that day, when I had been so happy. Jeff had wiggled the dark eyebrows he claimed he got from Angus Og, a distant ancestor, and said, ‘How do I look?’ And I replied, ‘A little Og.’ When he laughed I thought he was the handsomest man alive. It was my grannie who’d whispered, ‘The gilt will soon be off that gingerbread,’ to my aunt. I wondered what she had seen in us that I hadn’t.

I couldn’t thole being inside waiting for Jeff to get back, so I went and sat in the garden with my plants. A slater made his way along the bricks edging the vegetable patch, feeling the air with his antenna. The black and white cat from next door came and sat beside me to watch it. He had been wild for most of the summer, hunting mice and drinking from an old clay bowl I had put out to catch the rainwater. He licked his already white paws. A movement at the window caught my
eye. Hannes was looking down at me with an expression of sympathy. We were both a long way from home. I pulled some carrots and small new potatoes from the good earth and took them into the kitchen. When they were boiled, I mashed them with a little butter and took them upstairs. The front bedroom was empty and I almost dropped the bowl when Hannes came through the hall. He was wearing an old shirt and trousers of Professor Schramml’s, and looked as if he had washed. He was taller than Jeff. I stopped stock-still.

‘
Grüss Gott
,’ he said, and bowed. ‘
Wollen wir uns duzen? Ein Deutschsprecher wohnte hier, nicht wahr?
’ I didn’t know what he meant. He pointed to a picture of the Professor and then to himself. ‘German, here?’

I nodded, and held the food out to him. He took it into the kitchen, sat down at the table and chewed each mouthful slowly. I pretended to clean: wiping the surfaces with a soapy cloth, too shy to sit with him. He looked amused, but I was wondering if all Professor Schramml’s kitchen knives were still in their drawer. When he had finished eating, he beckoned me to follow him through to the front room. I was afraid he might lock me in, so I stood by the door. There was a German dictionary in a glass-fronted bookcase and he pulled it out and carried it over to the table, opening it as if it were a book of spells. He poured over the pages, leafing backwards and
forwards
, and writing the words he found in a list. ‘From Vienna,’ he said. ‘Austrian. Farmer. Go home. Not fight.’ He pulled a photo of a child out of his pocket. ‘Liesl.
Hast Du Kinder?
’ She was wearing a dress with wee, white puffed sleeves, a black bodice and an apron over the top, just like a picture of Snow White. ‘Children?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘
Vielleicht gibt’s noch Zeit dafür, wenn alles vorbei ist?
’ he said, and smiled, but I didn’t understand.

‘Perhaps, one day.
Wo ist Dein Mann?
’ He pointed to his ring finger and then to me.

‘My man?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘At the university.’

‘
Universität von
Edinburgh? Professor?’

‘Lecturer.’ I must have looked sad thinking of Jeff. The telegram was folded in my pocket.

‘
Er will Soldat werden?
’ He mimed holding a gun across his chest and waved a hand at the window.

‘Not a soldier, no.’

He leafed through the dictionary.

‘You love your man?’

His eyes were warm. I nodded.

‘
Krieg macht Angst
. War – anxiety.’

I didn’t like all these German words and stood up to go. He could have stopped me but didn’t move.

‘
Komm bald wieder
,’ he said.

‘I’ll come back soon.’

He stood as I left the table, bowed from his shoulders and clicked his heels together. It was so military that I wanted to run downstairs and phone the police, but by the time I opened the door, I realised that it might make things worse for Jeff. Mr Ford would have been cock-a-hoop to kill two birds with one stone.