Red Alert (22 page)

‘The dear green place,’ Betty echoed with pleasure.

‘He became Glasgow’s patron saint. He was so popular that people called him Mungo. That meant dear one.’

They were walking arm in arm through Glasgow Green.

‘Women used to do their washing here and dry their clothes. Can you imagine clothes flapping about in the wind all over the Green?’

‘Didn’t they have sinks and water in their houses?’

Hamish shrugged. ‘There was a Town Council order in … I think it was as far back as 1623, outlawing the washing of clothes anywhere other than in private houses. But no one paid any attention. It carried on as a public washing green until 1977.’ Hamish pointed ahead. ‘You can still see the iron posts for ropes over there.’

Betty gazed round at him in admiration. ‘I’m amazed at how much you know about history, Hamish.’

He gave a half laugh. ‘Oh, I always had plenty of time to read up about it. I practically lived in libraries. The first thing I did when I found myself in a new town or wherever was to find the nearest library. It was a nice warm place to sit as well.’

He laughed again.

‘By the way, the English visitors to the city all went to look at the washing being done.’

‘Why on earth was that?’

‘Well, the washerwomen used to stamp on the washing with their bare feet and hold up their skirts as they were doing it. That was something no one ever saw south of the border, apparently.’

Betty laughed along with him.

‘So it was the bare feet and legs they came to watch.’

‘Then it became the place for all sorts of games and sports. An open-air gymnasium, a golf club, a bowling green, a tennis courts, a hockey pitch, and always there was football. That’s where and how Rangers Football Club started. And of course, it was like Hyde Park in London with all its preachers and politicians and all sorts of speakers bawling the odds every Saturday and Sunday.’

‘It all sounds fascinating.’

‘Yes, I enjoyed reading about Glasgow Green. The powers that be often tried to take it over for one commercial reason or another, but each time, the people of Glasgow fought them for the right to keep it as a public park for the use of every Glaswegian. And they always won. Now it’s not only the oldest public park in Glasgow, but the oldest public park in the whole of Britain.’

‘Hamish,’ Betty said suddenly, ‘would you like to come back home with me for tea and to meet my mother?’

‘Gosh, from what you’ve told me about your mother, she’s not going to be pleased to see me.’

‘I’ve told her about you and said I was going to invite you. And I admit she looked furious but she always looks furiously at me now. She’s obviously full to overflowing with hatred of me. She’ll hate you even more. She’s always loathed and detested anyone of the male sex.’

‘Well, then …’

‘Well, I’m always honest with her now. I try to be as kind as I can, but totally honest. I need to have my own life now. I think I have a right. She controlled me and made me live a lie for so long. Too long. Will you come, Hamish?’

He squeezed her arm. ‘Of course I will. We’ll face her together.’

‘Oh, thank you, Hamish.’

They made their way then to a bus that would take them along Great Western Road to Anniesland Cross, near Betty’s home. Once there, he followed her into a clean and well-maintained close, so different from his own. Betty opened the door and led Hamish along the lobby and into the sitting room. Her mother was sitting watching television. She turned a malevolent stare on them.

‘Mother, this is Hamish I was telling you about.’

Hamish went over with his hand outstretched to shake the older woman’s hand. He jerked quickly back when she spat at him.

Betty said, ‘I told you what a nasty, horrible old woman she was but even I didn’t realise she’d be that bad. I’m so sorry, Hamish.’

He shrugged and wiped the spittle off his jacket with a handkerchief.

‘It’s OK. Don’t worry.’

‘Come on through to the kitchen with me and I’ll put the kettle on and make us a pot of tea.’

In the kitchen she said, ‘I know you’re miserable in your digs, Hamish, and I was going to suggest that you move in here but now I suppose you’ll think that here would be even worse for you. But you must be disgusted by my mother’s behaviour.’

‘Well, yes, but I could put up with your mother, Betty, and I’d love to live with you …’

‘Oh Hamish …’ Betty interrupted, throwing her arms around his neck in delight.

‘But wait a minute. I wouldn’t move in with you unless we were married first. I had enough of the insecure kind of life my mother led. She never married, never seemed to want to settle down anywhere with anyone for any length of time. I vowed I would never be like that. I’d like a happy, settled life with a wife and family. And I’d make sure my family had a secure and loving home life. That’s always been my dream.’

Betty’s face glowed with happiness.

‘Was that a proposal, Hamish?’

He grinned. ‘I suppose it was.’

‘Well, the answer’s yes.’

‘But we’d have to get our degrees first and decent jobs so that we’d manage OK financially.’

‘Yes, of course. I thought of teaching. I mean, it’s pretty precarious to try to live on any paintings I’d be able to sell at first. Teaching would give the security of a regular wage while I try to get established as an artist. What were you thinking?’

‘Much the same.’

‘Is that what we’ll do then?’

‘OK. I guess that’s it settled. All being well with our degrees, we should have no problem getting into teacher training and now that they guarantee you a job for your probation year, that would make a good start.’

It wasn’t until much later, after Hamish had gone back to his digs, that Betty realised that it wouldn’t be fair to subject him to full-time ghastly treatment by her mother. Their marriage wouldn’t stand a chance with the constant barrage of hatred and every kind of abuse her mother would hurl at them.

In the end, Betty decided that the best thing for all concerned was to get her mother into a good care home or nursing home where she’d have proper health care and supervision. She could apply to a private place because her mother had been left plenty of money by Betty’s father. And once her mother was in care, the NHS would, Betty believed, take on the burden of payment when her mother’s money ran out.

Betty contacted her local doctor, social services and even the Citizens’ Advice, and was promised help and someone to come out and assess the extent of the problem. She was told, however, that there should be no problem in getting a placement if things were as bad as she claimed with her mother’s infirmity and mental health problems.

‘I’ll come and visit you, Mother,’ she assured her.

An appointment was made for a carer and social worker to visit, with a view to a possible placement in a care home in Summerston, which was not too far away, and Betty had had good reports of its reputation.

She couldn’t help it – the thought of having the house free of her mother’s hatred was incredible. It was so wonderful, she did a wild dance around each room. She told Hamish but he stuck to his determination not to move in with her until after they were both awarded their degrees.

She prayed that they would succeed in getting their degrees. Soon they would know. Oh, life could not be so cruel as to make her fail. Not now. They had both worked so hard. She just knew everything was going to be all right. Oh, how happy she was! She was dancing in her mind:

Every step I take this morning

lands on a cushion of air.

All we did last night was kiss

and today you flavour everything

my mind touches.

Your voice sounds in the rumble

of a passing car. The valerian blue

of your eyes swims on top of a puddle,

promising birds safety

and a place to bathe.

A boy with short, brown hair

gelled to spikes, holds his mother’s hand

while crossing the road. I see you

in the way his eyes tug at her,

checking she is still there.

He gives a little kick with each step

as if the promise of a future

nips at his heels.

An old man at the bus stop, round

like Santa. You in fifty years. Cheeks

bunched in a grin, wearing an apple blush

like you last night when you brushed

my right breast with your arm.

Caught myself smiling at him,

wanting to know

how we carry the years,

yet don’t want to spoil the dance

of every blood cell

through the chambers of my heart,

like millions of tiny breeze-blown flowers.

He was back. Sandra could see Tommy visibly shrink even before Simon Price said a word to him. It was not only painful to look at Tommy’s hopelessness and depression; she was suffering the pain of it as well. She couldn’t bear to see Tommy like this. She hated Simon Price for ruining both their lives. They had once been carefree and happy together. So full of plans for the future. Tommy was a sensitive and brilliantly talented young man with everything to live for, to hope for. It was wicked that he had been reduced to this. The course was nearing its end. All of their work, including Tommy’s, was ready for the show. They were all on tenterhooks about whether or not they would get their degree. Tommy had lost every vestige of hope that he would get his.

Then Simon Price said he hadn’t a chance in hell.

‘You?’ he sneered. ‘No way!’

Just after he’d said that, Price was giving them a last lecture about Charles Rennie Mackintosh and leading them around the building, explaining Mackintosh’s thinking and intentions behind the architecture of the place.

‘He purposefully made some areas dark to make a contrast with the lighter areas. Like this dark part which leads on to the light area of the “hen run” and makes that light all the more startling. If we …’

Just then, Tommy unexpectedly raced over to a metal ladder, clambered up it and pushed at the hatch above.

‘What the hell?’

Before Sandra could even think what was happening, Simon Price had raced after him. In what seemed a matter of seconds, Tommy had pulled himself through the hatch and out onto the roof. The wind whipped at his T-shirt, moulding it to his slender body. He staggered at first, leaning into the wind to catch his balance. Beyond and below, the rooftops of Glasgow spread out like a patchwork blanket as far as the horizon, and a shiny sliver of the Clyde sparkled at the edge of his vision, the only sounds the rushing of the wind and the slight, far-away hum of the traffic on Sauchiehall Street below.

He turned precariously round, his arms spread wide for balance, and called back down through the open hatch, ‘I’m sorry, Sandra. I’m no use. I can’t stand it. I can’t go on, I just can’t any more. I’m going to jump. I can’t take any more of Price’s torture.’

‘Calm down, Pratt. Tommy, I’m sorry,’ Price called. Visions of tomorrow’s papers flashed through his mind, with no doubts about who would play the villain of the piece.

‘You’re a brilliant artist,’ Price called up through the hatch. Price slowly levered himself up, head and shoulders through the hatch, his hands gripping the lead guttering firmly.

‘Come on, Tommy. You’re over-reacting. Yes, I’ve been hard on you, maybe too hard. OK, I can be a bastard but I’ve only been trying to toughen you up. I’ve had rejections and been told I was no use in my day. So have all artists. Have you never heard what Van Gogh suffered? You need to be bloody tough to survive. I had to toughen you up. You’re such a brilliant artist, you have to survive for everyone else’s sake. And of course you’ve got your degree, the same as everybody else. You’ve got your degree, the same as your classmates. Do you hear me?’

Slowly, gently, his voice calming as if talking to a frightened animal, he stretched out his hand.

‘Please, Tommy, give me your hand and we can both come down out of here.’

There was a moment’s agonising hesitation before Tommy did as he was told. Price grabbed his hand and pulled him over and down the hatch. At the foot of the stairs, he said, ‘My God, don’t you ever do anything like that to me again.’ Then to Sandra, ‘Take him home. Wrap him up and give him some hot, sweet tea. He should be OK. But just keep an eye on him and make sure you’re both here early tomorrow.’

The shock of what had happened and, worse, what could have happened, robbed Sandra of her voice. Obediently, she led a grey-faced Tommy away.

‘I told you,’ she said eventually. ‘How many times have I told you …’

‘I know, Sandra. I’ve been a fool. I’m so sorry. But I thought, you see, that you were just praising me because you love me. Like I love you. And he is so talented and I just thought he must be the one I should believe as far as my art is concerned.’

‘No, it’s that bastard Price who’s been the fool. It’s not surprising you got so depressed, when he kept rubbishing you and your work. It was really wicked of him.’

‘At least his intentions were good. He believed he was doing the right thing for me.’

‘Bollocks! He’s just a wicked bully. You let him off with it and so he went to town on you. I’m telling you, he enjoyed bullying you, that was all.’

Tommy drew Sandra into his arms.

‘I appreciate your faith in me. It’s really wonderful how you’ve always believed in me and stuck by me, Sandra. I don’t deserve you.’

‘There you go, knocking yourself again. I could scream at you, Tommy. Have confidence in yourself. You must from now on. Just keep thinking to yourself, “I’m a brilliant artist and I’m going to be famous, not only here, but all over the world.” Make a mantra of it. Keep on saying it over and over until you’ve convinced yourself deep down.’

Tommy couldn’t help laughing.

‘You and your wild imagination.’

‘Tommy!’ Sandra warned.

‘OK, OK. I’m a brilliant artist and I’m going to be famous, not only here, but all over the world. I’m a brilliant artist and I’m going to be famous, not only here, but all over the world.’

‘That’s better.’

He kissed her gently at first, then with growing passion. Later in bed, they spoke of the degrees the next day. That was the Thursday when all the officials at the Art School would be there. Then the Friday was the show, when family and friends could come and everyone would party until midnight.