Fortunes of the Heart (18 page)

“No, Kate, he wasn’t killed at work. It might have been
easier to accept had that been the case. I still ... even after all these years
... still find it difficult to talk about. But here, wait a minute. You can
read, can’t you? Just give me a second.”

Granny got to her feet and moved over to a ledge above her
wall-bed. With some difficulty, on account of its great weight, she finally
managed to lift down her Family Bible, which she then bore back in triumph on
her outstretched hands. With great reverence, she placed the Bible on top of
the oil-clothed table and then after some fumbling of the brass clasp with her
arthritic fingers, she lifted back the heavy gold-tooled leather cover. Inside,
next to a single pressed flower, there was a newspaper cutting, now yellow with
age. This she lifted carefully and handed over to Kate.

“Just read that, my dear. I think that this is the right
time, for it often helps when in trouble to know that others have travelled an
even harder road in this journey of life. My prayer is that you yourself will
find comfort once you realise what I have endured.”

By now thoroughly intrigued at this unexpected development,
Kate just could not imagine what she might be about to read. Resting the
fragile piece of paper in the palm of her left hand, she bent her head to read
as best she could the faded print.

As if Granny could not even bear to look at the scrap of
paper, far less even think of the message it carried, she went over to Hannah
and together they played a noisy game of pat-a-cake.

Thus left in peace, Kate read the bare facts of an appalling
tragedy on Monday February 19th, 1849, when seventy people were trampled to
death in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal at Dunlop Street. It seemed there had been a
little smoke and some sparks from the front of the gallery. But this had at
once been extinguished by the simple expedient of one theatre-goer stuffing his
cap into the outlet pipe. The band, which had stopped playing on the dreaded
shout of “FIRE,” again started playing, there were relieved shouts of, “All’s
right.”

One
galleryite
had even called for
three hearty cheers. The tragedy, the awful irony, of the situation was that
before they reached the third cheer, a fireman appeared. There were renewed
shouts of, “FIRE”, immediately followed by blind panic and a mass exodus
towards the one and only stairway ...

“And your poor husband was one of the seventy killed, is
that right, Granny?”

The old woman turned away from a now over-excited Hannah and
again approached the table. She nodded.

“Aye, indeed, Kate lass. My poor Patrick. His night at the
theatre. He had saved up for weeks. It was to be a grand treat.
‘Twas
the great new Irish comedian you know, Hudson, direct
from London’s Covent Garden, no less.”

“Oh, Granny, what a terrible waste of life. I wonder you can
bear to think of it at all, even after all these years.”

Granny dabbed at her rheumy eyes with a rag which she had
hurriedly taken from the pocket of her sack-cloth apron.

“The truth is, Kate, I can’t. But, like I say, I thought it
might help take your mind off your own worries. You see, in that awful tragedy,
most of them were just young men, either just starting out on life, or with wee
bairns and wives at home. And then there were three wee lassies and even a
bairn of three tender years amongst the victims.”

“Oh Granny; but you know, you’re right. Even just hearing
about it all puts my stupid worries into perspective.”

With all the wisdom of her years, Granny nodded. She patted
Kate’s hand.

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in many a long day.
Meantime, what about a wee taste of the cup that cheers? I’ve just had an idea
as to how we can help your finances, now that they’re taken a tumble.

As the two women later sipped the hot, sweet tea, they put
their heads together to discuss Granny’s brainwave.

The idea was so simple that Kate could hardly wait to put it
into practice. With such a business head on her bowed shoulders there was no
doubt about it; Mrs Abigail
McGarrity
, otherwise
known around the
Candleriggs
as Granny
Gorbals
, was a true survivor.

Chapter 3

Kate made her way through the cold streets of mid-January
1891. After Pearce’s increasing lack of concentration and irascibility at work
had finally been too much for his employers and he had been dismissed, Granny
Gorbals
had suggested that for a determined woman there was
always work to be found in the more affluent neighbourhoods where proud
housewives would pay to have someone else take their turn to wash the tenement
stairs. So Kate trudged on to an area of wally closes and affluence. If
anything, the horse-drawn traffic seemed even heavier than usual and Kate had
to step nimbly to avoid being drenched with the
upthrown
filth, slush and horse-dung emanating from the filthy gutters.

Even at that early hour, the pavements were black with
pedestrians; in the main women with babies happed up tightly in shawls and held
close to protect them from the cruel, biting wind. But Kate noticed ahead of
her a frail looking woman hobbling along with the aid of a stick and clutching
a shopping basket in her other hand. By this time, most of the younger men,
those who were lucky enough to have found employment, had already departed for
their own labour, be it in foundry, shipyard or chemical factory. Here and
there, a sprinkling of older men, with hand-me-down suits and worn, cracked
boots loitered around the many street traders’ barrows, in the often all too
vain hope of securing a morning’s work in lifting packing cases or some such
menial and poorly paid task. Work that Pearce was not physically suited for,
even if he would condescend to lower himself that far.

Kate’s eyes took in the busy scene all around her. Then
catching sight of a group of unemployed younger men hanging around the corner
of
Glassford
Street, she hurriedly averted her eyes.
With the cancer of unemployment spreading its tentacles throughout the Second
City of the Empire, such aimless groups of dispirited men hanging about the
street was nothing new. On nearly every street corner, on every bit off
waste-land, groups of such men were huddled together for mutual support in
their misery.

With head bent low on her chest, Kate neither heard nor saw
the horse-drawn tramcar until it was almost too late. Had it not been for quick
thinking on the part of one of those very same unemployed men, then the old
lady with the stick would most assuredly have been killed. As it was, the man’s
puny, undernourished arms dragged her back from the horse’s hooves just in the
very nick of time. He wheeled her round and threw her over to the safety of the
pavement, where she landed with a crash as her spine collided with the stone
wall of a warehouse. Then, with the sudden force of the action, the man himself
overbalanced and for a horrifying and mind-stopping second, he teetered on the
edge of the pavement, from where, had he toppled over into the roadway, he
himself would have been trapped under the tramcar. As it was, by the grace of
God and by a superhuman effort on his own part, the rescuer managed to right
himself sufficiently to keel over to the pavement rather than to the roadside.
So, the brave man landed in a heap at the old lady’s feet. Like a tableau of
the ‘Drunkard and his Wife’ such as Kate had often seen at one of the enjoyable
Penny
Geggy
dramas in the park, or even at a
Temperance meeting, the two participants remained frozen to the spot in
statue-like pose.

The man was the first to recover his wits, as somewhat
gingerly he rose to his feet and dusted down the threadbare suit. He rescued
his flat tweed bunnet from the filthy gutter where it now lay.

Kate rushed up to the pair and helped the old lady to her
feet, steadying her as she trembled. The man was wiping bits of mud and
horse-dung from his bunnet with his jacketed elbow. Then, grinning sheepishly
at them, he said in the broadest of Glasgow accents:

“
Uch
. never mind. It’s supposed to
bring good luck.”

Kate smiled back at him.

“Good-luck, did you say, sir?” the old lady said in a
quavering voice, “If anybody’s lucky today
its
me.
Had it not been for you, your quick thinking, your bravery ... I shudder to
think what might have – indeed, what would have happened.”

Her rescuer gave his bunnet a last spit and polish with a
rag which he removed from his trouser pocket. That done, he jammed it on his
head, gave it a ritual tap and pulled the skip low over his eyes. He peered up
at her from under the rim.

“Best thing, Missus, try not to think aboot it. It was a
bloody close shave, I’ll grant you that. But it seems you’re not wanted jist
yet awhile up there with all the heavenly angels. When your time’s up, you’ll
be the first to ken. Will ye be aw right to
gae
hame?”

Kate nodded

“I’ll see her home if you could pick up her bits o’
messages?”

Feeling that she really must do something to repay the man
for his brave and unselfish act, Kate started fishing around inside the depths
of her own wicker basket. However, one horrified glance from the eyes squinting
up at her from under the
bunnet’s
rim, was more than
enough to strangle at birth any idea which she might have harboured as to
making any monetary recompense to the old lady’s saviour. Seeing that she had
changed her mind, the man gave her a cheeky grin.

“Well, hen, here’s her basket. Much as I’d love to stay here
bletherin
’ with the pair o’ ye aw day, I’d best be
gettin’ back to my pals. They’ll be
takin
’ the mickey
oot off me,
thinkin
’ I’ve clicked with a new
girl-friend. So,
tata
the noo. And for the love o’
God, mind how you go, Missus.”

He had already turned away from them and was heading back
towards his mates on the corner, when the old lady’s voice halted him and
caused him to turn his head to catch her words.

“I said, thanks again. Is there’s anything I could do?”

The man raised his bunnet and, groping under the rim with
his fingers, gave his head a good scratch, as if this somewhat aided his mental
thought-process. Then, as if someone had turned on a switch, his lantern-jawed
face lit up.

“Aye, hen. There is something you could do. Maybe you’d be
kind enough to light a wee candle and say a Novena for my wife and bairns?
Would you do that?”

“I’ll see you home, Mistress ...?” Kate said.

“Mrs Scott,” the old lady said. “I’d really appreciate that.
It’s not far but I do feel a bit shaky.”

Mrs Scott lived on the ground floor of one of the wally
closes that Kate so envied. She invited Kate in and insisted on making them a
nice cup of tea. Kate looked round in admiration.

Seated in the front room, Mrs Scott glanced sideways at
Kate.

“Mrs Kinnon, that young man asked me to light a candle and
say a Novena for his wife and children. I must confess I wouldn’t know how to
do that. I’m not Catholic. Could you ...?”

Kate laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m not Catholic either, I’m
Baptist. – at least my father was a lay preacher.”

Mrs Scott clapped her hands. “What a coincidence. I’m
Baptist too. I daresay the Lord will take the intention for the deed.”

As they talked, Mrs Scott learned that Kate had been on her
way to seek employment washing stairs.

“Would you consider a different kind of work, Mrs Kinnon?
I’m bad with arthritis and find it difficult to get about. I was out today for
a bit of shopping because the woman who usually ‘does’ for me has left Glasgow
– her husband has managed to get a place with some relative on a farm near
Ayr.”

“What would you need me for?”

“Well, she used to come in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
to clean and shop for me – and to give me a bit of company. Sometimes she’d
make a stew or a casserole for me that would see me through the weekend ...”

“Yes, I could certainly do that.”

Kate left Mrs Scott feeling very satisfied with her morning.
She now had a job that paid more than she could have expected for washing
stairs all week without the tiring, back-breaking work that would have
entailed.

She soon settled into a routine. On the mornings she went to
Mrs Scott she could still have breakfast for Pearce, and for Danny and Jenny
before they left for school, leave something for a mid-day meal and be home in
the afternoon to prepare an evening meal. Tuesdays and Thursdays she could
leave home later in the day to wash the limited number of closes and stairs she
had decided to take on after all.

Pearce gave up any pretence at seeking work. His moods
alternated between the depths of gloom when he ignored everything and everyone,
and violent rages.

Kate and Mrs Scott began to form a relationship that was
much closer to friendship than to that expected between employer and employee.

Chapter 4

Some months after taking up employment with Mrs Scott, Kate
was increasingly worried about Pearce, who showed no sign of interest in
anything or anyone.

She waited till Pearce had gone out of the kitchen to use
the toilet before she took three sixpenny pieces from the old tea caddy at the
back of the top shelf above the sink.

With the money clutched in her hand, she felt happier
walking down the street than she had done for months. Although in her heart she
knew it to be an extravagance, she knew exactly where a shilling of her money
was going to be spent. With the other sixpence, she determined to buy the
ingredients necessary for Pearce’s favourite tea–a plateful of Irish stovies.
Surely he won’t chuck that back at her?