Shoes Were For Sunday (12 page)

Miss McKenzie brushed all argument aside. She came herself with me to the interview with the scholarship board. My mother couldn’t get time off work for such a wild-cat scheme, and in any case would have
been far too frightened to have faced a board of men. To this day I can remember my utter astonishment when, on being asked if she felt I had any particular qualities, and would benefit from such a scholarship, this wee old-fashioned elderly teacher banged the desk with her clenched fist, sending the glasses rattling, and declared in an American idiom I never suspected she knew, ‘I’d stake my bottom dollar on this girl.’

I trembled at the passion in her voice, and at her faith in me. ‘What if I fail her?’ I gasped to myself. ‘What if she has to pay all the money back if I let her down?’ I knew we hadn’t a spare farthing to repay anybody, and I was sick with a sense of responsibility in case I ruined this new, violent Miss McKenzie.

As I’ve said, I was a natural swot, but even if I hadn’t been, the memory of that indomitable little figure would have spurred me on when I felt like faltering.

At the end of my year at college I was able to lay before her the college gold medal as the year’s top student, a bronze medal as a special prize in another subject, twenty pounds in prize money, and a whole sheaf of certificates.

And suddenly as I gazed at her, and saw her eyes sparkling with pride behind the gold-rimmed glasses, I realized how widely she had thrown open the door of opportunity for me. And I knew for the first time what the phrase ‘entertaining angels unaware’ meant. For there, standing before me in class, was my very own angel, Miss McKenzie.

But long before this, and before that visit to the theatre, when Shakespeare was revealed to me by real actors, one of the forms of our local entertainment which lured me like the candle to the moth was the annual kinderspiel put on by the Rechabites, a temperance society, commonly known as the Racky-bites. I joined this society purely and simply to get into the kinderspiel. Thoughts of temperance never entered into it, and one of my earliest attempts at being an entertainer took place at a Rechabite meeting. An important guest had failed to appear, and volunteers from the body of the hall were begged to step forward and provide the fun. I was about eight years old at the time and, swallowing nervously, but finding the call irresistible, I made my way to the platform and in a voice husky with emotion said I would dance the Highland Fling for them.

In full view of a highly diverted audience I first removed my tammy, then my coat, then a long string of ‘amber’ beads which were Grannie’s and which hung to my waist, and might have banged back and forth as I danced, and lastly my cardigan. By this time the audience was convulsed. I was bewildered by their laughter, but quite undeterred. At last, having whetted their appetites with this innocent striptease, I plunged into my version of the Highland Fling, only narrowly avoiding leaping over the edge of the stage as I jerked forward a few dangerous paces with each step. Breathless and triumphant I finished to a round of warm applause and loud
laughter. I then collected all my clothes and my beads and put them all on again to mounting cheers, before descending to make room for the next performer.

My appetite was well and truly aroused, and I was in a fever of impatience for the kinderspiel. I went to Wednesday rehearsals, fairly jumping with excitement and anticipation, and I deaved Grannie for weeks with every chorus in which it was to be my privilege to take part. I was to be an angel, one of a host of about thirty, and my eyes grew wide with joy as I thought of the white dress I would wear, the little white lacy shawl which would cover my curls and keep them dry
en route
from house to hall and, the most exotic final touch, of the sparkling glitter frost which would be sprinkled over the shawl to simulate glittering sequins or raindrops, I wasn’t sure which. I couldn’t wait for the transformation which would turn me from a wee lassie in a jersey and a skirt to a beautiful white glittering ‘angel’.

Then tragedy fell. Three weeks before the show, on the very night the artists’ tickets were to be given out, I fell a victim of the virulent influenza bug. The tickets had to be handed to each child personally. The organizers were all busy working men, who gave their precious time to the Rechabites free of charge, and they point-blank refused to deal with requests other than at the fixed hour on that fixed night, and nobody could collect a ticket for anyone else. Flu or no, I was determined to get that ticket, but Grannie was adamant and paid scant
heed to my bitter tears. ‘You’ll not step a foot outside this door the nicht,’ she said. ‘Do you want to get yer daith?’ Death at that black moment seemed a simple punishment beside the anguish of missing the kinderspiel. But she was grown-up and I was small, and stay in bed I must.

I lay there, numb with despair, and then resilience flooded back. I knew what I would do. I would simply get better. I would get better more quickly than I had ever done before from previous flus, and I would get an artist’s ticket if I had to steal one. So I did everything I was told without a murmur, and three days before the kinderspiel I was allowed out to play again.

Without a word to anybody, I stalked the organizer from his work to his house. We all knew where everybody in the district worked, and it was easy to wait for the half past five horn and follow him home. My heart was thumping, but my mind was fixed on that ticket. It was against all the rules, but I was past caring about that.

I knocked at the door. It was opened, and the organizer stood regarding me. ‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘I was off when you gave out the tickets, and I’m an angel in the chorus, and I
must
be at the kinderspiel.’ My eyes fixed on his imploringly. ‘I’ve got my dress, and my sparkling frost and everything.’ The last words shamed me by breaking on a half-sob. Suddenly the man smiled. ‘I remember you,’ he said amazingly. ‘You’re the wee lass who did the Highland Fling, aren’t you?’ I stared at him,
speechless, and nodded. I had expected aloofness, argument, maybe instant refusal, but never in my wildest dreams recognition.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Would you like to do your Highland Fling again for us, but this time at the kinderspiel?’ he asked. I gulped, visions of myself in my white dress and sparkling frost fading. ‘But I’m an angel,’ I said. A ‘single’ turn made no impression on my young mind. To be one of a band of angels was the summit of my ambition just then.

‘Well, that’s all right,’ he said, ‘you can still be an angel, but one of our dancers has fallen ill and we need something to fill that space, and your Highland Fling would be just the thing.’

‘But what will I put on. I havenae got a kilt.’ Although I didn’t possess one myself, I well knew that all self-respecting Highland dancers wore kilts.

‘You don’t need a kilt,’ he said surprisingly. ‘Just you wear your wee jersey and skirt, and your long beads, and your cardigan and do it exactly as you did it before.’ Something seemed to be amusing him, but I was in no mood to puzzle it out. The dazzling prospect of being at the kinderspiel at all was enough for me. When I ran home in triumph with the ticket Grannie said, ‘Aye, I kent fine you’d get it, if you died in the attempt.’ But she was smiling, not angry, although she had been aghast at hearing I’d followed the man home from his work.

There could never have been a happier angel than I
was on the night of the kinderspiel. Never was sparkling frost more liberally sprinkled, and never did leading lady feel more glamorous than I as I adjusted my woollie shawl over my hair and stepped proudly from the close on my way to the show. I was the only angel who had to change back into everyday clothes in the middle of the performance, and I sighed regretfully as I laid my heavenly garments aside for a brief space.

The lilt of the dance introduction was heard, and I went forward, feeling miserably conscious of my workaday attire. I did my innocent striptease, the forerunner of all stripteases I believe, and then went into my Highland Fling. It brought the house down, although the only one who couldn’t understand the reason was me. When I solemnly raised my arms to remove the amber beads there was such a roar of laughter I nearly forgot the opening steps of the dance. I needed all my concentration to stay on the platform, for I’ve never been able to dance on the one spot, and this time as I surged wildly towards the edge, there was a yell of apprehension, then a gasp of relief as I stayed trembling on the very brink for the final step. I took the warning shouts for granted. They were just the yelps of my grannie as I staggered towards the fireplace at home, multiplied in several hundred throats. Their laughter was beyond me, but their concern quite understandable. ‘Naebody would want to see a wee lassie falling over that terribly high platform,’ I thought comfortably, as I panted to a triumphant conclusion, and, the cheers still ringing in
my ears, I hurried backstage to put on my beautiful angel’s dress again.

What did it matter to me that my unorthodox Highland Fling had been the hit of the evening? I was too young to realize what a happy fate it is to be able to make people laugh, and too excited to resent their laughing at my honest efforts.

I took my place, with bursting heart, among the angels once more and bounced out with most unholy glee, to yell out the closing chorus which said goodnight to our audience, and to the kinderspiel for that year.

One of the most dramatic stories told to me by my mother was of an accident to me in babyhood, when a tramcar was pressed into the rescue operation. I was about nine months old at the time and my mother had stood me up on the sink-ledge by the window while she cleared up the bathing things before putting me to bed.

The china bath, washed and dried, was beside me on the draining board, and when I turned round at the sound of my father’s key in the door, my foot went through one handle, and I crashed to the floor. The bath broke into a dozen pieces, and an edge cut through the bridge of my nose like a knife. My mother used to shudder as she described the blood as ‘spurting up like a well’, but my father, quick as lightning, seized the two cut edges of my skin between his fingers, bade my mother throw a shawl round me, and before she knew what was happening had dashed down two flights of stairs, kicking over the basin of pipeclay water and the stair-woman in his flight. He leaped on to the driver’s platform of a passing tramcar.

‘Don’t stop till you get to the Royal Infirmary,’ he ordered. The driver was so impressed with his urgency that he did exactly that, and all the passengers were
carried willy-nilly to the doors of the infirmary. To me the most impressive part of the story was that the tram wasn’t even going near the infirmary on its route. It should have turned at right angles at the points long before then. I was astounded that a tramcar should have been used in this way as an ambulance for me, and that the driver had dared vary the route from that marked on the destination board.

It was maybe this thrilling piece of Weir folklore which started my love affair with tramcars. When I was a little girl I only had the penny for the homeward tram journey, when my legs were tired after the long walk into the town for special messages. It would have been impossibly extravagant to ride both ways. That luxury was only indulged in when travelling with Grannie, and the journey to town then seemed so different from the top deck of the tram, the landmarks so swiftly passed compared with my usual walking pace.

Later, when I went to college and the novelty of gazing out of the window had worn off, I used the travelling time to catch up on my studies. I’d be so absorbed in the intricacies of book-keeping, or French, or drama projects that only the changing note of the tram, and the memorized lurching motion as it neared my stop, warned me that I was home and it was time to get off.

I was amazed one day when a conductor said to me, ‘I’ve watched you for years, and in all the time you’ve travelled on my car I’ve never seen you read a book just
for pleasure – you’re a great wee worker.’ We knew all the conductors and conductresses by sight, of course, but the notion that they saw us as other than a hand holding out a fare was a great surprise.

The most sought-after seating was in the front section of the upstairs deck. This was a favourite meeting place for the youngsters, for it felt just like being on the bridge of a ship, and it was cut off by a door from the main top deck. We could sing or tell stories if we felt like it and were sure we were disturbing nobody. The driver, whom we’d forgotten, could hear every word, for we were sitting directly above his platform with only an open staircase between us. He didn’t mind the singing at all, but if a foot-thumper kept up a steady drumming in time to the rhythm of the ditty he’d shout up to us to be quiet, or he’d come up and throw the lot of us off. This was enough to silence us, for it would have been a terrible waste to have been thrown off before the stage we’d paid for had been reached. We all loved riding in trams and quite often went right to the terminus to get our money’s worth, and walked back the odd quarter-mile to our homes.

At one time fares weren’t paid for in cash, but in little bone tokens which were bought in bulk at the tramway offices in town. I don’t know why this precaution was taken, unless it made the conductor’s bag lighter, or foiled a would-be thief, or a dishonest employee. Their colours fascinated me and I longed to save them up and
use them at playing shops, but the tram rides they bought excited me even more, so I never possessed more than one at a time.

When I was very small the routes were indicated by the colour of the trams. When colours were replaced by numbers we thought we’d never get used to them. How could we be expected to remember the No 25 went to Springburn and Bishopbriggs when all our lives we’d travelled in a red car to our homes in these districts?

You could see colours a long way off, but you had to be fairly close to see a number, and the queues teetered uncertainly trying to decide which number suited them, and delayed the tram’s departure. This infuriated the conductress, who would shout, ‘Come on, youse. Whit are youse waitin’ fur? The baund tae play?’