Fortunes of the Heart (11 page)

Even greater confusion reigned at the Kinnon table, as Kate
both tried to mop up Hannah with a convenient table napkin and at the same time
round up her brood.

As they left in some disorder, Kate was sure she heard a
comment in the tortured vowels of the refined
Kelvinside
accent from one over-dressed, over-fed, and over-bejewelled matron to the
effect that: “Can’t imagine how that lot of scruff got in here. Don’t they know
there’s a working men’s dining establishment for the likes of them?”

Daniel, as he trailed out after the rest of his family, was
conscious of two facts: the first, he and his family were the centre of all
eyes, every stuck-up toff, every la-de-dah snob in the place had studied the
Kinnons and found them wanting. Not only were they scum, they were Irish scum
at that; the second, once safely home in Garth Street, he was set fair to get
the thrashing of his young life from Dadda.

For not only had he been the guilty party, who had stuffed
Hannah to capacity with a variety of rich Indian Sweets, there was still that
other matter. He knew in his heart it would be bound to come out, one way or
another. So he might just as well confess to it ... aye, he had taken Hannah on
the switchback railway. And not just once. She’d had two rides on the
thrill-a-minute coaster. And if that plus the glut of sweets had made her sick,
then yes, of course, he was sorry.

But Hannah had squealed with delight throughout her
exciting, never-to-be-repeated journeys. All right, she had been sick
afterwards, but if they were apportioning blame, whose choice had it been to
make them all suffer the torment of the damned high tea, no less in that temple
to high fashion and false manners, that swanky restaurant in which they had no
place, nor indeed any idea of how to conduct themselves?

True, she could equally well have spewed forth her meal in
the Working Men’s Dining Room. But somehow Daniel had the feeling, rightly or
wrongly, that it would not have caused such a furore there, nor been regarded
as a studied affront to the other diners – all of them as lowly born as the
Kinnons themselves.

Chapter
20

The day had started like any other in their small, cosy and
now fairly-well furnished and equally well-run home. After the upset of the
move from their old home and the debacle of the flitting itself, all the
children and Kate herself had settled well into their new abode. In the
two-and-a-half years that had since passed, the children had made new chums in
the neighbouring streets. Kate also had cultivated new, and in at least a
couple of cases, better friendships; Pearce plodded along as usual in his job
at the Fruit Market. Kate often pondered the truth that beyond the fact her
husband worked at the Market, and brought home his wages faithfully every week,
she knew very little about either the Fruit Market itself or about Pearce’s
place there in the hierarchy

On the few occasions that she had tried to pump him for
information, he had replied: “Look, Kate, you know that the Market is just
around the corner, for you must pass it every day. You know that I work there
and that I bring home a living-wage, sometimes with enough left over for those
little ornaments you so delight in. Honestly, I don’t know of any other woman
in the
Candleriggs
who is the proud possessor of
three pairs of wally dugs.”

Kate had laughed at that, for it was true enough. While
Pearce might deny her much in the way of loving affection, he did, however,
humour her in her passion for cheap china knick-knacks, or what she herself
chose to call her wee bit
dabbities
. But when she
dared to ask him about his job, his face darkened.

“Kate, you do your job in the home, and I’m bound to admit,
you do it well. The place is always gleaming, polished to an inch of its life
with your vinegar-soaked cloth, or whatever it is you use. Well-cooked meals
are always on the table at exactly the right time. And the children are growing
up to be a credit to you. But having said all that, you do your job and I’ll do
mine. That’s all you need to know, especially as long as I bring home
sufficient money with which to feed, house and clothe us.”

Despite having been overwhelmed at such unexpected praise
being bestowed upon her blushing brow, Kate had been forced to leave the matter
there.

Such had been the thoughts going through Kate’s head that
spring morning when she first awoke, that for once she was loathe to leap out
of bed in her usual fashion. However, with a deep-felt sigh, she rubbed her
eyes awake with knuckled hands, knowing as she did, if she wanted the range
cleaned out, relit with twists of old newspapers and spent coals, then she had
better get on and do it. For as Pearce had so rightly said, and that on more
than one occasion:

“You do your job, Kate. And I’ll do mine. A woman’s work is
in the home.”

And there the strict delineation of work had stayed. In good
days and bad, in fine weather and foul, in sickness and in health. Pearce would
no more have thought of lifting a nugget of coal with which to replenish a
dying fire than he would have dreamt of going to work without his gaffer’s
bowler hat. For Pearce, entirely due to his own hard work, had come on in the
world. With a number of young clerks working under him, he was the boss of that
particular section and as such, entitled to wear that much aspired-to badge of
office – the gaffer’s bowler hat. At the way her thoughts were wandering this
morning Kate shook her head of rich, nut-brown hair, so vigorously that the two
fat plaits danced around her.

Then, speaking quietly to herself, she said: “Come on, Kate,
my girl. Never get the porridge on the fire at this rate. Nor the bairns ready
for school.”

She sidled her bottom over to the edge of the bed. taking
care not to waken a still sleeping Pearce, nor even the three girls lying on
the
hurlie
-bed and over whose still forms she would
have to step in order to reach her clothes. Keeping a wary eye on the four
recumbent bodies, she dressed quickly and expertly in the curtained dark before
reaching up to the gas-mantle. That done, she brushed out the thick pigtail
plaits, which, thus released, fell in a cascade of waves to her slim waist.
Then, with a couple of deft and long-practised movements, she swept the mass of
hair up into a coil which she in turn skewered with steel pins on top of her
head. She then went into the front room to waken her son and on the way back
through the narrow, dark hallway, paid a quick visit to the water-closet. Back
in the kitchen, she washed her hands under the tap at the sink, and started her
daily routine. The pot of porridge oats had been steeping overnight, so once
she had finally coaxed the fire in the range into active life and added another
scoop of coal as added encouragement, she positioned the pot and then set about
laying the table. As she bustled about filling the kettle for Pearce’s
early-morning cup of tea, she hummed softly to herself, already happier that
the well-oiled routine was moving smoothly.

Later, having devoured his tea, porridge, toast and dripping
in complete silence, Pearce eased his chair back a bit from the table, patted
his stomach as if congratulating it upon the fine job it had just done and,
with unaccustomed bonhomie, smiled at Kate.

“My, and that was grand, Katie lass, just grand. Just the
thing to set up a working-man for the day’s toil ahead of him.”

Kate somewhat flustered by the unaccustomed praise, Pearce’s
good humour, and his surprising use of her pet name, smoothed down her apron
and smiled uncertainly, as she waited for him to go on.

His keen, piercing eyes which never missed a thing, be it a
speck of dust or an unwashed mug, looked her over from top-knot to toe. Then,
as if liking, perhaps even more, approving, what he saw, he leant forward and,
taking her work-worn hand in his, said: “Katie, listen, my darling girl. I’ve
been thinking.” Here he cast a surreptitious glance over his left shoulder at
the three forms still in the
hurlie
bed. Satisfied
they were in fact still asleep, he moved his hand further up her arm and in a
grand conspiratorial whisper said: “Yes, thinking, a good deal of late. Now
that I’m earning a good steady wage week after week, and thanks largely to your
good management, we have no outstanding bills. Well, the point I’m trying to
make is this: how would you like a –”

Kate, her green eyes wide with astonishment and perhaps even
a measure of fear as to what on earth might be coming, decided, if nothing
else, to put an end to the agony of suspense, to make a joke of it, clutching
one hand to her bosom and raising the other to her furrowed brow in the classic
pose of the abandoned drunkard’s wife about to be thrown out into the snow, she
screeched:

“No, Pearce, no. Not another house move. I don’t think I
could stand that. Not so soon. Not just after three short and – may I say,
happy – years here in Garth Street.”

Pearce laughed appreciatively and not least at the effect
his own words had had on his wife. He allowed himself the rare luxury of a
tight, self-satisfied little smile. It was still playing about his lips as he
said in what was, for him at least, a coquettish tone of voice: “Katie, my own
dear girl, you should have been an actress. But listen. Do be serious for a
minute. Bear with me. It is not a house move which I have in mind, but –”

Still enjoying to the full their rare moment of intimacy and
shared innocent fun, Kate could not resist prolonging the delightful event.
Again clutching one hand to her breast, she laid the other hand on Pearce’s arm
and with her eyes raised to heaven in mock distress, she moaned: “Oh. Sir, kind
sir. Tell me what my fate at your hands must be. Tell me. For I am but a poor
unschooled country maid and not wise in the ways of a cruel, wicked world.”

Pearce started to laugh and went on laughing until he had to
hold on to the back of a kitchen chair for support. Then at last, he wiped his
eyes with the back of his shirtsleeve.

“Katie, Katie. Honestly, we’re both behaving like a pair of
naughty, over-exuberant school children. And look, there’s poor Hannah stirring
with all the commotion. Well, I can see I had better tell you quickly and have
done with it.”

Kate dropped her hand from his arm, lowered her head, and
then, looking up between girlishly, shy, half-closed eye-lashes, said: “Tell
me, kind sir, for I am totally at your mercy. What now is to be my fate?”

He reached out and clasped her round the waist in such a
bear-hug as she had never before known. Then, speaking close to her top-knot,
he said: “What I have in mind is this, my dear; a family holiday, no less.”

Chapter
21

Kate was stunned, but she managed to recover herself
sufficiently to say in a tone of wonder: “A wee holiday, did you say, Pearce?
By all that’s miraculous, that would be truly wonderful. In all the long, weary
years we’ve been here in this grim, grey, accursed city, the furthest I’ve ever
been from
Candleriggs
is a wee outing to Glasgow
Green and
Kelvingrove
.”

Kate frowned, then slapping the palm of her hand against her
forehead, she exclaimed: “No, I’m sinning my soul by telling a lie. I remember
now you once took us to that lovely
Rouken
Glen for
an afternoon. But a wee holiday. Now that indeed would really be something.
But, Pearce, do you really mean it? I beg of you, please don’t make sport of
me, for that I just could not bear.”

He laughed good-humouredly, and not least at her recently
adopted Glasgow accent, which contrasted oddly with her soft and attractive Irish
brogue. He leant over and, as if to lend weight to his words, patted her bare
arm gently.

“A little holiday, I said, my dear, and that is exactly what
I meant. If it pleases you to do so, then look on it as a reward for the job,
the grand job, I may say, that you’re doing in rearing our family in this alien
environment. With the exception of poor daft Hannah, who’ll never be anything
other than she is, they are all turning out much better than I could ever have
expected or even hoped for.”

He beamed his approval at her and although Kate could well
have taken umbrage at his comments with regard to Hannah – for she alone knew
how very hard she worked with the poor soul – she decided instead to bask in
the glory of the moment. That being so she pushed back an overhanging lock of
hair, smoothed down her sack-cloth apron, and smiled back at her husband.

“Yes, Katie, my girl, you’re bringing them up just fine, to
be decent citizens. Not like some of the riff-raff we see around here. They’re
polite and well-spoken, albeit with lapses into that terrible, guttural Glasgow
patter. I swear to God, they’re bi-lingual. And well-read too.”

His eyes blazing with excitement, he leant forward and
grasped her hands between his own.

“Katie, as you know, I really do detest either you or any of
the children adopting this vile Glasgow accent. Even so, the locals have a very
apt turn of phrase for what it is I’m planning.”

He paused to let his words sink in. At this, Kate leapt from
her chair, as if shot from a cannon. Her green eyes aglow, she stared at him in
disbelief.

“Pearce. You don’t mean ... you can’t mean ... it would be
just too wonderful for words.”

Pearce too rose to his feet and, with a beaming grin, he
held wide his arms to her, as at that exact moment, and like a couple of
excited school children, they shouted in unison: “A wee trip doon the waiter.”

He hugged her to him then, as they drew apart, with a
delighted grin still on his face, he laughed.