Silver Linings (8 page)

When the tide ebbed, both bodies were found within a couple of feet of each other. Everyone expected Jenny to be devastated and they were amazed and surprised when instead she said, ‘I’m so pleased that they’ve gone on their last journey together. All their lives they’ve been the best of pals and helped each other through thick and thin. So … as much as I’m grieved to lose my Donald … I do understand why my darling husband tried to save his friend Dodd.’

Neither Kate, Johnny, nor Kitty were so understanding. They felt it had been foolhardy of Donald to jump in when there was no hope of even
finding
Dodd in the murky water, never mind saving him.

Three weeks after Donald and Dodd’s funerals, Jenny had a sort of breakdown. She’d been so brave up until then and had urged her family to get on with their lives. ‘Sad it is that your dad has gone,’ she would say, ‘but it’s not tragic. He and Dodd had good lives and knew so many joys with their families. Tragic,’ she went on, ‘is the slaughter of all our young people in this blasted war.’ That was all she ever said but she did ask herself,
Why, oh why, did the people of Germany put their trust in a mad man like Hitler? Why, oh why, did they blindly follow him?

The breakdown saw Jenny retreating into herself and she gave up everything. She even stopped trying to assist Kitty with her burdens that became heavier as each day passed.

Kitty, for her part, felt it had been bad enough to live without her mother, but now that she had also lost the support of her grandparents, life was becoming intolerable. To add to all her worries she felt that her inexperience in the art of cooking was adding to her problems. How was she going to satisfy her ravenous brothers and father out of the paltry rations that were being allocated? It was a nightmare. However, if Kitty was being truthful, which she was reluctant to be, her Aunty Kate was the one who was most affected by the sad events that had recently befallen the family.

On the morning of her dad’s accident, Kate had been jolted awake by the wails of the sirens. ‘Not another blooming air raid,’ she hollered, jumping out of her camp bed in the department store.

‘You say something, Kate?’ Gladys asked, stifling a yawn.

‘Yes, Gladys, it sounds as if we’re under attack and I don’t mean from our male colleagues who always expect us to be up before them and making their tea and toast.’

‘Germans? Don’t be daft, Kate, it’s just coming up six o’clock in the morning!’

‘Maybe so but these wails you hear are us being told to get to our fire stations.’

An hour later, after they had listened to the docks being bombed and blasted, they sighed with relief. The department store had not been subjected to a direct hit by any bombs or incendiaries.

By eight o’clock all had gone quiet and the fire duty team got themselves out of the store; they were heading home when one of the dock area policemen called out to Kate.

The constable had begun by saying how sorry he was but it looked as if her father had been drowned. Whatever he said after that failed to register with her. All she had taken in was that her beloved father, the only man in her life since Hugh, was now deceased. The manner in which he had been killed was of no importance to her. All that mattered to her was that he was dead. Her darling daddy was no more.

Through her daze she knew she must pull herself together because she was the one who would need to break the news to her mother. It had only been after the last air raid, when people were killed or injured, that Jenny had said how lucky the family had been – not one of them had received as much as a scratch. Kate’s thoughts now became fully consumed by her mother and father. She had always thought that if Hugh had survived and they had wed, their marriage would have been like her mum and dad’s. It wasn’t that they never quarrelled – they did, and how – but they never went to sleep without kissing each other goodnight.

Kate had been amazed when Jenny took the news about the death of Donald, her husband, in her stride. She appeared so strong and, at first, it was she who held the family together. This mystified Kate because her own grief was such that she was unable to hold up anyone, even herself. She also noted that her brother, Red Johnny, hadn’t crumbled the way she had. Perhaps with their dad’s demise coming so soon after Sandra’s, Johnny was now past caring.

The night after her dad’s accident, Kate was due to be on fire duty again. Her first response was to ignore this commitment but Jenny insisted that the family had to go on and do their duty. ‘There is no other way, Kate,’ she had emphasised. ‘Dad wouldn’t want us to let others down. Fires may have to be put out. Women, and more importantly, bairns rescued.’

When she entered the locked-up building by the back door a man who she reckoned was ages with herself came forward and offered her his hand.

‘Sorry, very sorry about your father, Miss Anderson,’ he said in broken English.

Holding back surging tears, Kate nodded as she recognised the man as Hans Busek, who had come to work as a porter in the store six months before. All she knew about him was that he was Polish. According to the shop gossip he had been a native of Warsaw. It was also said that he had escaped the German occupation of his homeland by stowing away in a Port of Gdansk fishing boat.

‘Can I do anything for you?’

Kate shook her head but she did manage to mumble, ‘Thank you so much, Mr Busek.’

Quite suddenly Kate found herself then thinking that there was a refinement about Hans. She also acknowledged that he was very polite and worked very hard, but always he kept his distance from staff and customers alike. Giving further thought to Hans, she also admitted that he appeared to live in a world of his own which he did not wish to share with anyone. This being the case, it was such a surprise to Kate that he had hung about waiting for her to come into the building that first evening after her dad’s accident. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that until tonight she hadn’t even given the man a second thought, and yet he was concerned enough about her to offer his condolences.

Being the senior employee on duty, it was Kate’s responsibility to inspect and ensure that all was ready in case of an attack. She had just finished checking that all doors and passageways were free from obstructions and that all the pails were filled with either water or sand when she once again came upon Hans filling a kettle in the staff-room.

Wearily dropping herself down on a dining chair, she decided that she had to speak to someone, it didn’t matter who. What did matter was that they would engage her in a conversation that had nothing at all to do with the war or the untimely death of her father.

‘You’re making some tea, Mr Busek?’

Hans turned, and for the first time that she could remember, he smiled at her – a radiant smile that completely changed his expressionless face, turning it into a warm and friendly, caring countenance.

Kate’s elbows were now resting on the staff dining table and Hans set down a cup of hot weak tea in front of her. ‘Thank you, Mr Busek,’ she managed to mumble.

‘No trouble, Miss Anderson,’ he replied, holding out his hand to her. ‘And it would please me if you would call me Hans.’

Gripping his outstretched hand she nodded. ‘Nonetheless’ – she swallowed and paused before adding – ‘when others are about in the store we must address each other formally. You see,’ she hesitated again before whispering, ‘Hans, this superior Leith Provident Department Store has its standards and we must be seen to be keeping them – especially as this blasted war is changing everything.’

He nodded, stepped back and withdrew quickly into himself again.

Kate knew she had offended him and she wished she could take back her words but he had lifted up his cup of tea and left the staffroom. All she heard was the adjacent door of the cubbyhole open. She knew he would now be sitting on an upturned packing case in the large windowless cupboard where the manual staff took their breaks.

The shipyard where Johnny worked was owned and run by the Robb family. It was a compound of mismatched buildings situated in the docks area of Leith and was encircled by the tidal waters of the Firth of Forth.

To enter the yard at the Portland Place entrance, one of the two larger access portals, you had to be admitted by a police constable. The constabulary’s job was to ensure that no unauthorised person gained entrance to the yards and dock area. This task at the start and finish of the shifts was a sheer impossibility. Thousands of men, who were employed on an hourly basis, would stampede at the start of their shift to get to the ‘clocking-in’ area on time. If they were as little as a minute or two late then they could see their wages docked by a quarter of an hour – and most men needed every penny to support either their families, the street bookies or their drinking habits.

The Dock Police Officers, who operated out of a good-sized wooden shed, would, if it was in their interest, turn a blind eye to a privileged few of the dockers and stevedores who always seemed to be snaffling out food and alcohol that had ‘accidentally’ fallen off the back of lorries. It wasn’t really an uncontrollable black-market affair. In the main it was just that some of the men couldn’t resist the temptation to make life easier for their families – and really what else can you do with an accidentally torn sack of sugar and a couple of bashed tins of New Zealand butter other than to divide it up amongst the men unloading the ship?

On the morning of the raid that cost Donald his life, Johnny was on the early shift, starting at seven o’clock. At 6.55 a.m. precisely he and a group of about twenty other trotting mates approached the entrance gates to the docks and were about to push past the police box when the elderly cop called out to Johnny.

‘Sorry, Hamish,’ Johnny blustered, ‘but I’m in a hurry. It’s nearly clocking-in time. But I promise that I’ll catch you later, mate.’

‘Aye, son, it is nearly seven,’ Hamish replied, ‘but clocking in is no your priority the day.’ Hamish now beckoned to Johnny before adding, ‘Come in here, Johnny lad, I need to …’

‘Surely you’re no going to inspect my piece box? You did that last week when I was going out and all you found was a crumb of cheese that wouldn’t have satisfied a wee moose.’

By now Hamish was out of his police office, and when he pulled on Johnny’s coat sleeve Johnny drew up abruptly.

‘What is it? I mean the all-clear has just sounded so I just have to get into our workshop and see that all’s well.’

‘You’re right there, Johnny lad, but …’ Hamish now ushered Johnny into the shed, and as he pushed him down onto a stool Johnny knew something was amiss.

Everyone, including Hamish, the police officer who imparted the dreadful news to Johnny about his dad’s demise, was surprised at how well Johnny coped. Johnny and Donald had had a good relationship, and Johnny knew that a lot of the important things he knew about life, and living it well, he had learned from his dad. Johnny accepted that not having his dad’s tuition and advice on tap would be a great loss to him. He was truly sorry about Donald’s death, but when the worst thing in life has already happened to you, as it had to Johnny when Sandra had passed over, everything else, in time, becomes bearable.

A week after Donald’s funeral, the yard manager, Frank Tonner, who felt he was being driven to distraction by Johnny and his outrageous demands, began to think about ways of controlling Johnny. The wily old fox, who had years of experience of the yard’s politics, started to consider just what he could do to rein Johnny in. Whilst he was deliberating this problem, Johnny, out of the blue, called another stoppage over demarcation. This situation called for management and union representatives to meet as a matter of urgency.

Now one of the deputy managers was a man called Jock Weldon, whose grandparents had come to settle in Leith at the time of the Irish potato disaster. Like Johnny, Jock wished to see the lot of the working man improved. Nevertheless, unlike Johnny, he always put the interests of his family first. In all his industrial-relations dealings he would support reasonable deals for the men on the shop floor. But, if it came to head-to-head confrontation between the trade unions and the management, he would shy away. He just wasn’t into wildcat strikes that ended up with less or no pay at the end of the week for the men on the shop floor, nor was he into union bashing.

At the start of the present pressing negotiations Frank decided to sit back and allow Jock to put across the management’s point of view. As always, the management’s chief spokesman, in this case Jock, pointed out that there was a war on and the common enemy was Germany – not, as in this case, some silly wee apprentice painter mucking about in the turner’s shop in the dinner break. Johnny conceded with a nod. Frank began to relax. What he was seeing was that Jock, a trade unionist but also management, was a man who could do business with Johnny Anderson. He decided there and then to give Jock the opportunity to go further in playing the management role. He knew that this was a gamble, as Jock was a member of a trade union and it might be against his socialist principles to completely abandon his fellow trade unionists.

What Frank wished to happen was that the shop stewards, especially Johnny, would feel that in Jock they had a man in management whom they could work with and trust. The other bonus was that management would also have an appointed representative in Jock who would work hard in their interests too.

Within fifteen minutes, Jock had managed to do a miracle in ‘shop-floor bargaining’, with Johnny agreeing to call off the strike. Subtle Jock knew that Johnny had to keep face by taking something back to the men. This something turned out to be that if Johnny did agree to call off the strike, Jock would promise to have consideration given to the management getting the shipwrights to knock up cubicle lavatory facilities with lockable doors. Up until that moment all the men had were places in the open air behind their work stations. To add to the indignity the lavatory facilities were long wooden planks with six ‘bum’ holes drilled into them. This meant six men, with pressing engagements, could be sitting in a row chatting to each other as they communed with nature and allowed their excess wind to break free.