Shoes Were For Sunday (8 page)

Sometimes when handing the mantle back to Grannie for replacing on the bracket my fingers would grasp it too tightly and I’d hear a screech, ‘My goodness, that’s anither mantle awa’. Whit’ll your mother say? How often have I to tell you that ye canna handle a mantle like a bool? Awa’ doon to the store and get anither ane.’

The assistant would cock a quizzical eye as I asked, ‘One inverted gas mantle please.’ ‘Imphm! And who broke it this time, hen? You? Or yer grannie?’ ‘Me,’ I had to confess. As he handed me the little square cardboard box, he’d say, ‘Weel, don’t run wi’ it. Tak’ yer time and walk, an’ no break it afore ye get it hame.’ So I’d walk very slowly, holding the box fearfully, and controlling my normal bouncing step in case I’d jiggle my frail cargo to destruction.

There was quite a ceremony as Grannie and I carefully raised the lid and gazed inside to confirm that all was well. And there, suspended by its four wee lugs, which hung from neat, cut-out projections of thin cardboard, was our ‘inverted gas mantle’.

It looked incredibly fragile and white, with a frosted lacy texture which trembled at a breath, and the smooth chalky neck seemed too brittle for mortal hands.

A chair was brought forward for the hanging. I envied Grannie this part intensely, and it was many
years before she listened to my plea of ‘Och let me put the new mantle on, Grannie.’

‘You!’ she would snort. ‘Dae ye want it broken to smithereens afore it’s in the hoose a meenute?’

It was a delicate job and called for deft fingers to hang the wee lugs safely from the matching supports of the gas bracket, and we held our breaths as Grannie moved her fingers away, for the slightest misjudgement could send the mantle shattering to the floor.

Great care was taken when the match was applied to a new mantle. Some people, in fact, burnt the whole thing with a flaming match before letting the gas in, but we never did this. The gas tap was turned on just a little, so that only a small quantity of gas whispered into the tiny globe. The match was held at just the right distance to ignite the gas, but not so close as to endanger the new surface. There was a ‘Plop’ as the gas caught the flame, and the lowest tip of the globe sprang to brilliant life.

Cautiously the tap was turned up and up, until the whole mantle was pulsing with light. We let our held breaths go in a sigh of satisfaction. The new mantle had been successfully broken in.

But it took a long time for me to stop feeling guilty for having caused this needless expense. Poverty is a very exacting teacher, and I had been taught well. We learned never to waste a single thing during our childhood. We were generous with what we had – no beggar was ever turned away from our door, and we could
always manage a welcome cup of tea for a visitor – but we wasted nothing. When I was old enough to be trusted to empty the sugar bags into the big glass jar, Grannie showed me how to fold back the corners, first at the top, and finally at the bottom, so that it was smooth and unwrinkled and not a grain of sugar lost in any tiny crevice. The same treatment was given to the tea packets, while the butter papers were carefully scraped with a knife before being folded and put away, and Grannie used them later to cover the rice pudding or grease the baking tins.

When my mother, visiting a neighbour, would see her transferring butter from paper to dish by tapping it out, before screwing up the paper and tossing it into the fire, she would shake her head, aghast at such waste. ‘All that good butter into the fire,’ she would say to us later; ‘nae wonder they havenae a ha’penny to their name.’

It was years before I knew anybody actually
bought
string. When a rare parcel would arrive at our house Grannie and I would sit down at the table to open it. ‘We’ll just tak’ time tae lowse the string,’ she would say. ‘Never waste a good bit o’ string wi’ shears, for you never ken when it’ll come in useful.’ With unhurried fingers she would undo every knot, until she had a smooth length of string, and then she would show me how to wind it into a neat figure eight, and securely fasten it before popping it into the string bag which hung inside the cupboard door. The brown paper round
the parcel was also smoothed and folded, and put away for later use, and, of course, every paper poke was smoothed and kept in a drawer for my mother’s pieces for her work, or chittering bites and pieces for us.

We children of the tenements were aware of the economy of daily living. We knew food wasn’t always there for the asking and we learned to know the price and value of everything. With a sixpence clutched in my hand, I would race down to the greengrocer’s before breakfast. ‘Sixpence-worth of vegetables for soup,’ I would say, and I’d watch with eagle eye to make sure I got a wee bit of everything. Carrot, turnip, leek and some parsley. It was no use the greengrocer trying to tell me parsley was too dear today to be included in the sixpence-worth. ‘You need parsley for broth,’ I would say stubbornly. ‘And Grannie said I was to get it with my sixpence-worth.’ I usually did.

An ‘outside’ loaf was a farthing cheaper than one baked in the middle of the row, for it had a hard shiny outside slice which was tough and indigestible. ‘Will I get an outside one?’ I’d ask Grannie eagerly when coppers were scarce and pay-day a long way off. ‘They’re a whole farthing cheaper.’ ‘Nae, naw lassie,’ she would say, ‘it’s nae savin’ at a’, for naebody could eat it wi’ pleasure, and that slice would be wasted,’ and so I learned that a bargain wasn’t always a bargain, even if the price-tag was lower.

I used to trot into the town with the daughter of a neighbour, even poorer than we were, for there was a
special shop which sold ham-bones for tuppence-ha’penny for two pairs, and that gave them two good pots of lentil soup, and a good picking at the bones with their boiled potatoes. It was a mile and a half each way, but we thought nothing of it, especially if it was the gird season, and we were there and back before we knew it.

I discovered gradually that a highly priced roast wasn’t necessarily better than the delicious potted meats Grannie could make with the cheaper shin of beef. And I found too that boiling beef on the bone had a flavour all its own, and it didn’t matter that it was a wee bit on the fat side, for that gave it added sweetness. ‘Aye,’ Grannie would nod approvingly, as she saw me waiting till there was just an inch of meat clinging all round before I’d hold out my plate, ‘oor Molly kens what’s guid for her. The sweeter the meat the nearer the bone.’ And she showed me how to blow out the marrow to mix with my plain boiled potatoes, and we both remembered the words of the hymn, ‘Even as with marrow and with fat my soul shall filled be’. I thoroughly agreed with hymns as practical as this.

By the time I was ten years old, Grannie could trust me to choose a piece of beef, knowing I’d bring back the very best value in the shop for the money I had to spend. I could shoulder this responsibility quite confidently when only one or two shillings were involved, but I remember one Christmas I was sent to get a piece of roast beef for our Christmas dinner, and when the
butcher said ‘Seven-and-six’ I nearly choked in panic. I didn’t know so much about roasts. What if I chose wrongly and wasted my mother’s precious money? So, oblivious of the other customers, and shaking with the weight of decision, I asked the butcher to keep it aside while I ran home and described it to my grannie. ‘It’s like a great big chop, Grannie,’ I told her breathlessly, ‘with a wee bit of different colour in the middle, and a wee division of fat right here,’ and I pointed to the place on the table where I was drawing it with my finger. ‘And it’s seven-and-six. Will I get it?’

She sat still, considering what I had said. ‘Aye,’ she said at last, ‘get it. If it’s like that, then it’s sirloin, and it’s a grand bit o’ meat.’ I flew back to the shop. ‘I’ll take it,’ I said importantly, laying down my three half-crowns with a lordly air. It
was
sirloin. It was delicious, and Grannie gave me a special slice of the wee bit in the middle which was a different colour, and told me it was the fillet. That was a new word for me – I’d only heard of fillet fish – but I remembered it, and agreed with Grannie that it was the finest delicacy of all.

All the jam in our house was home-made. My mother’s comment, ‘She’s the kind that aye has bought jam on the table’, was enough to let us know the shiftlessness of the person she was describing. We’d watch the shop windows until the jam fruit was at its lowest price, then rush home with the news, ‘Grannie, the man says the black currants’ll no’ get ony cheaper’, or ‘The strawberries are goin’ up again next week.’ Out would
come the big purse, and off we’d scamper to get the fruit and the preserving sugar, ‘And mind ye get nice dry fruit noo,’ Grannie would exhort, ‘Nane o’ his wet sleeshy stuff or the jam’ll no’ set.’

When a loved mother died in our tenements the tragedy was felt by us all. But the family was never broken up and scattered to different Council homes. The father went to his work as usual, but the children, skilled shoppers and well aware of the work every penny had to do, ran the house and bought the food, and would have been astounded if anybody had suggested it was too much for them. There was no mystery in housekeeping to them. They had done the shopping since they could toddle, and could count up their change like adding machines. In our tenements it was never too early to learn to face up to life.

In winter-time the Angier’s emulsion didn’t always work its magic, and sometimes I’d have to be kept off school because of a bronchial cold or flu. We didn’t bother to call the doctor, for we were used to this sort of illness. And I loved being lifted from the hurley bed into the cool vastness of the big recess bed where my mother usually slept, but she was now off to work. It was almost worth while being ill to lie there, snug and warm, with the stir and activity of the house around me.

What a lot of things Grannie had to do when we were out at school. There were all the vegetables to be washed and scraped or peeled, and cut into tiny squares for the soup. And I never knew she fried the onion and the floured meat when she was making stew. Mmm, what a good smell the frying onion had. And how pleasant it was to watch her get out the flour and the milk, and know that in a wee while I was going to be given a lovely pancake straight off the girdle, dripping with margarine. The wifie across the landing had smelt the pancakes too, it seemed, for she came in to ask the time, as her clock had stopped, and was just able to wait to have a cup of tea with us. And then the potatoes had to be peeled and put on to boil, to be ready in time for
my mother coming in from work and the boys from school, for they all got home at dinner-time. I was only hungry for a wee bowl of soup, and a beggar who came to the door also got a bowlful, for Grannie said he looked more in need of a guid bowl of soup than a penny, which she couldn’t spare anyway.

But when Grannie herself was ill, things were very different. She suffered from severe bronchitis, and every winter the doctor had to come to see her. I was usually kept off school to let him in, and the fuss that went on before his visit astonished me. The night before, my mother flew about laying out clean sheets and pillow-cases, and a clean nightie for Grannie. A fresh cloth was placed in readiness for the table. The range was polished, the floor swept, and the brass covers burnished till they hung in a gleaming row above the dresser, the coal fire reflected in every one of them.

The morning of the visit, my mother rose an hour earlier than she usually did. The bed was stripped, Grannie was put into the fresh nightie and laid gently against the splendid snowy pillow, hardly daring to breathe in case she’d crumple it before the doctor arrived. I sponged her face and hands while my mother put finishing touches to the bed-cover, and smoothed the gathers of the bed-pawn, and then, when she had made sure everything was really in mint condition, off went Mother to work. She was well satisfied the doctor wouldn’t find a flaw anywhere, as far as material things went.

I busied myself getting the dinner ready under Grannie’s sharp directions. She had small patience with slackness, sickbed or no, and woe betide me if I used the wrong-sized spoon for anything, or stopped stirring till she told me the exact moment.

At last came the knock at the door. My heart in my mouth, I would gaze at Grannie.

‘Will I open it?’ I would whisper.

‘Of course. Do you think you’re going to keep him on the landing? Ask him to come in, and then don’t open your mouth to say a word till he goes away.’

My cheeks flushed with nervousness, my mouth dry with fright, I’d turn the handle, and there on the landing was the doctor. A huge man carrying a wee black bag. ‘Come in,’ I would whisper, ‘Grannie’s in her bed in the kitchen.’

A pair of blue eyes would take in the neat, tidy, immaculate kitchen, and with a twinkling smile he would advance towards the bed and, to my horror, actually
sit
on my mother’s good bed-cover.
Nobody
was allowed to sit on this! Grannie would flash me a warning glance when she heard my gasp of dismay. The doctor would speak. ‘Now, now, Grannie, what have you been up to, eh?’ I was sure Grannie would give him the rough edge of her tongue for daring to suggest she had been up to anything, but she was smiling and preening herself and, surprisingly, not the least bit angry.

Her chest was impressively sounded, and the wee black things he had worn in his ears were put away in
the bag. A prescription was written out and left on the table and then, before I realized it, he had patted me on the head and was out of the door. The visit was over.

‘Now,’ Grannie would say, all satisfaction that everything had gone off so well, and I hadn’t done anything to disgrace her, ‘we’ll hae a wee cup o’ tea. A nice chiel yon, and real clever. I’ve never kent a doctor who gave a better bottle.’

‘A chiel,’ I’d repeat to myself, puzzled at such a description. He seemed like a very old man to me. He was strange and fierce, with his queer prescriptions written in an unknown hand, bold and free with his careless crumpling of my mother’s best bed-cover, and greatly to be feared with his wee black bag. But Grannie was certainly right about the good bottles he prescribed, for it only needed one visit and one bottle to have Grannie on her feet again, and when Grannie was well we could all dare to be cheeky again, and I could get back to my rightful place in the hurley bed again, and coorie into her back.