Primrose Square (24 page)

‘Oh, God, the shop! I never thought! Dad's gone and Ma'll have to find somewhere else to live. And what's she going to live on?

‘We'll have to see how things work out.'

‘We know how they'll work out! Somebody'll take the shop and want the flat and Ma'll have to find somewhere to live, without Dad's money or mine!' Corrie stood up and began to pace in agitation about the room.

‘Listen, I think Ma will manage,' Elinor told him quickly. ‘She's got her cleaning job and might do more hours, and she's got me to help, as well. Try no' to worry. You've enough to think about as it is.'

When Corrie threw himself into a chair, shaking his head, she added hesitantly, ‘About Dad, did you ever think we'd miss him so much?'

‘Miss him?' Corrie put his hand to his brow. ‘I don't mind telling you, there were times when I wished him gone. Maybe you were the same?'

‘I never wished him dead. Just, you know, that I could have somebody easier – for a dad.'

‘Aye, well, no one could ever say he was easy.'

‘But he did care for us, Corrie. I found that out when he came to find me that time. And he was different after that – mostly. I did love him, really.'

‘Mostly. I'm no' sure he'd really changed. But the thing is, now he's gone, it's hard to imagine life without him. Funny, eh?'

‘I'll miss him,' Elinor said slowly. ‘He wasn't a happy man, he knew he shouldn't be as he was. Maybe he was only learning to change when he died.'

‘Still had a last row with me.' Corrie fixed Elinor with earnest eyes. ‘You say I needn't feel guilty, I still do. I wish it hadn't happened.'

‘Corrie, it's true, you needn't feel guilty. The real worry now is that you're going away.'

‘I'll be coming back.'

‘So easy to say!' She waited a moment. ‘You're in the same regiment as Barry Howat, you know. I don't want ever to see him again, but I'd be small-minded if I didn't wish him well. You could tell him that.'

‘Elinor, I'll be in a different battalion, I'll probably never see him. Hope I don't, to be honest, after the way he treated you.'

‘All over now.' Suddenly Elinor's face crumpled and she flung her arms round her brother. ‘Oh, Corrie, come back like you said, just come back!'

‘I promise you I will,' he said huskily, and when Hessie came out of her room to find them both in tears, the three of them stood together, supporting one another, for quite some time.

Forty-Five

Hessie had been right about the neighbours. Every day, people came over from the tenements, bringing what they could – soup, or pieces of ham, shortbread, if they could afford the butter to make it, scones, jars of pickle, or jam.

‘Will you look at this place?' Hessie cried. ‘It's like a shop, eh? Still, it'll all come in handy for the funeral tea.'

All arrangements to do with Walter's death had been completed, with Elinor, who had been given some time off, doing most of the work, and now all they had to do was get through the funeral which was to be held at their nearest kirk. The next day, of course, was the day of Corrie's departure, but they were trying not to think of that.

One piece of good luck had relieved the family's minds, for Hessie's future in the flat over the cobbler's shop was assured. The landlord had let the shop to a widow from Nicholson Street, who wanted premises for her dressmaking and alterations business, and did not require the rooms upstairs.

‘Oh, what a relief!' Elinor remarked to Corrie. ‘That's a huge worry out of the way, especially as he's taken a shilling off the rent, seeing as Ma's a widow now. You'll feel better, eh?'

‘Aye, I will. I've been lying awake at nights, wondering what we could do.'

‘Me, too,' said Elinor. ‘I sometimes wonder if things will ever get back to normal.'

Then she stopped, biting her lip, for things for Corrie were not going to be normal in any foreseeable future.

Still, the funeral went off well, with a good crowd to mourn Walter, and a fine spread laid out afterwards in the cobbler's shop, as Mrs Elder, the dressmaker, had not yet moved in. With enemy ships blockading British shipping, food was in short supply, but it was hard to imagine it, seeing all that the neighbours had managed to find for Hessie, and everyone was very cheerful and full of chat, as was usual at funerals.

How can they seem so happy? Elinor wondered, standing aside from the throng, slim and pale in her black dress. Yet a moment's thought told her that no one was really happy, no one had any reason to seem cheerful except that they wanted to appear so. Many of the young men from the tenements were already away to the front, leaving those at home to the kind of anxiety Elinor and Hessie were already feeling over Corrie. And then there was the continued anxiety over money, for if some war work was well paid, most jobs were not, and there was always the rent to find, eh? And boots for the bairns?

She shouldn't be critical, Elinor told herself. At this time, everybody had something to worry over. Even the well-to-do had to fear the ring of the doorbell, the sight of the telegram. How long did a young officer last at the front? Three weeks, was it? The thought crossed her mind  . . . was Stephen Muirhead an officer? She'd never thought to ask Brenda, and didn't in any case want to show the interest in him that was fast occupying her heart.

After Walter's burial in a Newington cemetery, she and Hessie spent a quiet evening with Corrie, their last for some time, trying like the mourners to appear cheerful, but with less success. It was a relief, really, when they could go to bed early and make the morning come more quickly, get the parting over, as Corrie put it. Soon, it was indeed over, the hugs and brief kisses given, the promises made to write, and he was away, walking down Friar's Wynd with a canvas bag on his back and a last wave to the two women waving back.

‘That's him, then,' Hessie sighed, turning in to the cobbler's shop, where no Walt bent now over his customers' shoes. ‘Now, there's just you and me, Elinor, and you'll be gone soon, eh?'

‘I'll be back tonight, Ma. I'm sorry to leave you, but they've been so good at the Primrose, letting me have the time off, and I know I'm needed.'

‘Aye, you get back, pet. I'll be all right, I've plenty to do. And you've your friend to see, eh? She must've started work by now.'

‘Brenda, yes, that's true,' said Elinor. ‘I wonder how she's been getting on.'

‘Very well!' cried Brenda, when Elinor arrived back at the Primrose. ‘Wonderfully well. At one time, I'd never have thought I could do something like this, but I love it. I think of Tam and remember I'm doing my bit and then I'm really happy.' She took Elinor's hand. ‘But never mind me. How have you been managing? I was so sorry to hear about your father.'

‘Thank you. I must admit, it's no' been easy – was such a shock, you see. And then we had to say goodbye to Corrie, my brother, as well. He's joined the Royal Scots.'

‘Oh, your poor mother! To lose your dad and then to have your brother going to war. But she still has you, that's something. My dad died years ago and there's just my mother and me at home, so I know how things are.'

‘I'll do all I can for Ma. I promised Corrie when he left, I'd see she was all right.' Elinor gave a faint smile. ‘But your mother will be gaining a son soon, eh? When you're married to Tam?'

‘Yes, when. Oh, I just hope he can get the leave some time. He thinks maybe July, but nothing's sure. You'll come to the wedding, Elinor?'

‘Need you ask? There's no' much to look forward to these days, but I'm looking forward to that!'

Who had liked something to look forward to? Elinor's smile faded, as she remembered. Stephen, of course. ‘Something to look forward to, that's what I like,' he'd once said, and what he'd been looking forward to was another meeting with her. But there would be no more of those.

‘I'd best get on,' she said quietly. ‘Always so much to do.'

Good news came at last for Brenda, when Tam's letter arrived giving the dates of his leave in July. Barely a week, but it would be enough for their wedding and time away on honeymoon. He'd have to leave all the planning to her, but who was more efficient than his dear Brenda? ‘Yours,' he'd ended, ‘with love and desperation to see you again, your own troublemaker, Tam.'

Brenda, in seventh heaven, read the letter to Elinor, whose day was brightened by such hope of happiness. It was like a ray of sunshine in the darkness, but darkness was to descend again when an event occurred that no one could have foreseen.

Forty-Six

News came first to the Primrose from a QA who'd gone out to buy her usual early edition of a newspaper on the morning of May 23rd, and come running back, white-faced.

‘A terrible train crash!' she cried, waving her paper. ‘The worst ever known – near Gretna Green – and all Royal Scots men – oh, so many killed and injured – it's terrible, terrible!'

Royal Scots men. Elinor's heart stood still. Oh, God. Corrie! Had he been on that train?

‘What happened?' people were asking, as she stood with her hands clenched at her sides, fearful to hear details from the QA who had bought the paper. In fact, it was the matron who told them, calling all the staff together to pass on the information she'd been told by telephone the previous evening.

It seemed that the accident had happened at 6.50 a.m. on the morning of the 22nd. Men of the Royal Scots were in a special troop train, travelling to Liverpool to embark for Gallipoli, when their train collided with a local train left where it shouldn't have been by careless signalmen. A goods train and a train of empty coal trucks then hit the two damaged trains and a fire broke out, sending the old-fashioned wooden framed carriages of the troop train up in flames. Of the soldiers involved, 226 were found to be dead and 246 were badly injured, leaving only a handful of men unharmed.

Looking over her reading glasses, the matron paused as a stunned silence followed her words.

‘I'm sure you'll agree that nothing could be more tragic or ironic than what happened to those soldiers on their way to Gallipoli. To be killed or injured in their own country before they could even reach their destination abroad is too horrifying to think about, but there are two things I want to say to you now.

‘The first is that I know some of you would like to be able to offer your services to help the injured, but as we are so very stretched here, I'm afraid that's just not possible. I'm really sorry – I wish we could have done something.

‘The second is that, as you know, we have some patients here who are in a very fragile mental state because of their experiences. It might be as well to withhold news of the accident from them until we can take the time to prepare them. I'm sure I can leave this to your discretion.'

Thanking them for their attention, the matron was turning to go when a QA put up her hand.

‘Excuse me, Matron, but have any details been released about which Royal Scots battalion was involved in the accident? My brother is a serving officer with the Eleventh.'

‘I'm sorry, I should have made it clear – I know some of you will be anxious about relatives. The men were from the Seventh, known as the Leith Battalion, because so many came from that area.'

Taking off her reading glasses, the matron looked around her listeners and gave a little sigh. It seemed that no one had a special grief for someone lost at Gretna Green, but that didn't mean that their hearts were not going out to those who had died and their families. Plain to see was the shock and sorrow on all the faces of those turning to take up their duties, trying to come to terms with death and destruction, not on some foreign battlefield, but very close to home.

‘Not your brother?' Brenda whispered to Elinor.

‘No, thank God. I suppose if I'd thought about it, I'd have realized he wouldn't have been ready yet to go out to Gallipoli, but I just heard the words “Royal Scots” and everything turned black. Now I'm thinking of those who died.'

‘Me, too. I'm shaking. Let's get on with things and then make some tea, eh?'

‘Tea, yes. What would we do without it?'

But as she began her morning's work, Elinor was thinking of someone else she'd almost forgotten. Barry was Royal Scots, too, but not from Leith, which meant he wouldn't have been on the fatal train. Another reason for thanking God, though why God should single out one soldier rather than another to be saved was not something she'd ever worked out or even questioned. All she knew was that even if Corrie meant more to her now than Barry, she still was glad that Barry was safe, too. No doubt Bettina and Georgie would be thinking the same, but she never saw any of the Howat family now, which perhaps was just as well.

And then, she did see Bettina. As it had not been possible for Primrose staff – apart from Matron – to be spared for the funeral of the dead soldiers, Elinor had gone after work to pay her respects at the Rosebank Cemetery, where the men had been buried in a mass grave. As she was leaving to make her way home, she saw Bettina ahead of her, dressed in black, and wondered if she should speak. Might be awkward, she was thinking, when Bettina turned round and the problem was solved.

‘Why, it's you, Elinor!' she cried. ‘Have you been to the cemetery?'

‘Hello, Bettina. Yes, I couldn't go to the funeral, so I went to put a few flowers on the soldiers' grave.'

‘I did the same thing.'

The two young women, studying each other, were silent for a moment, then Bettina cleared her throat.

‘I was that sorry about  . . . what happened between you and Barry,' she said, with some nervousness. ‘I always said, you were the best lassie he brought home.'

‘Water under the bridge,' Elinor answered. ‘I was upset at first, but I'm over it now.'