The Girl with the Creel (37 page)

Hardly able to credit that she hadn't heard, Jenny said, ‘Were you not listening to Chamberlain this morning? Britain's at war with Germany.'

‘Oh well, everybody said it was coming.'

‘Are you not worried for Peter?'

‘Worried. What about?'

‘Oh, Elsie. Him and Mick are in the Navy, they'll be sent to wherever they're needed … to fight the Jerries.'

A frown crossed the other woman's face, natural as nature intended for once. ‘D'you think they might … be killed?'

‘It's possible.'

‘Oh, Jenny, and I was really nasty to Peter when he was home.'

Elsie looked so distraught that Jenny regretted alarming her. ‘They'll likely be safe enough.'

‘Oh, I hope so. You see, I was angry at him for joining the Navy and leaving me wi' two boys.' She stopped and eyed Jenny's rounded stomach. ‘And you'll be left wi' an infant. When's it due again?'

‘Round about Christmas, and Mick thought he should be home in time for the birth. I just hope he doesn't have to act midwife for me like he did for Lizann.'

‘Oh aye, Peter tell't me about that.' Recalling how Peter had come by the information, Elsie's heart hardened against him. If he hadn't been taken in by that pasty-faced widow, he would still have been a proper husband to her, and she wouldn't have needed Lenny.

Sensing a change in her friend, Jenny said she'd have to get back to Hannah. ‘Thank goodness she hasn't the wit to know about the war.'

Having had several soakings over the past two weeks, Lizann was growing worried about the winter. It was only October, but already the ground was white with frost in the early mornings, though it soon cleared. The soles of her shoes were so thin now that every tiny stone she stood on felt like a boulder, and worse still, they didn't keep out the wet. She had resorted to packing them with wads of any old newspapers she found, because she couldn't afford to buy a new pair, nor a coat, nor a thicker cardigan. Her hands were raw and hacked, and her legs were a blotchy red with the chilblains caused by brine running out of her creel.

It was clear but cold when she set off up the hill one morning, and she was surprised when a woman from one of the cottages called out: ‘I hope you dinna mind, but I see you going past every day, and … I was going to throw out this old coat o' my man's, but I thought maybe you'd be glad o' it.' Looking anxiously apologetic, she held out a shapeless black garment with a green tinge to it that spoke of having been stored in a damp cupboard for many a long year.

It would have gone against the grain at one time for Lizann to accept such a monstrosity, but she had no pride left. ‘It's very good of you,' she smiled. ‘Thanks very much.'

The woman watched her putting it on. ‘It's a bit big, but it'll keep you warm,' she observed before going inside.

The coat would have gone round Lizann twice, and its hem practically touched the ground, but it would keep her warm, she decided, and shield her poor legs from the brine.

Working along with the ‘tattie howkers' – mostly children who got a week off school to help gather the potatoes – Dan Fordyce spotted a peculiar figure coming along the road. He was very short, and his long black coat was flapping round him though he was doing his best to hold the front edges together. Thinking he was a tramp, Dan kept his eyes on him, and it was only when the stranger turned into the farm track and he saw the creel that he realized it was the young fishwife.

Bending his back to his task again, he was glad that someone had given her a coat. He had seen her from a distance a few times since the onset of the cold weather, and had felt so sorry for her that he'd considered giving her one of his, or asking Meggie if she had something she could spare, but she might have thought he was interested in the girl. He was interested, but only in her welfare. He wondered if the lass knew how incongruous she looked but supposed she had no mirror – and what did it matter anyway, if it kept out the cold?

When he saw her leaving the farmhouse just minutes later, he knew that his housekeeper had not even given her a cup of tea. He wished that he had the courage to go and speak to the poor thing – a kind word might lift that attitude of dejection – but if he did it would be all round the district that he was chasing after her. Besides, what could he say? She would think it strange if he said he was glad someone had given her a coat. It was none of his business, and she would likely tell him so.

When he went in for his lunch, he expected Meggie to remark on what a sight the girl had been, but she didn't mention it, and neither did he.

Chapter Twenty

Lizann was forced to take a break at the end of December, because none of the boats went out. With nowhere else to go, she huddled over the driftwood smouldering in the tiny grate in her room, rising only to get a bite to eat occasionally. She was worried that her stand-by money, as she called it, was so low, only shillings left after buying the loaf and the bottle of milk, but luckily one of the cottars' wives had given her three eggs and a lump of home-made cheese last time she was there.

On Hogmanay she let her little peep of fire go out, and went to bed long before the New Year came in. This last month had been really hard, she mused, shivering between sheets that felt, and probably were, damp; without the old coat, she doubted if she could have survived the howling winds and driving rain. There had even been days when the coat was still so wet in the morning that she'd had to leave it behind. No wonder she had a neverending cold.

Thankfully, there hadn't been much snow yet, though it would come with a vengeance in January or February, and she wasn't looking forward to battling against blizzards. Curling into a tight ball in an effort to get warm, she prayed that 1940 would be a better year for her than the one just ending.

‘Lizann, come and pick up my paper!'

Jenny couldn't help frowning at the whining voice. It was bad enough to be called by the wrong name without being interrupted when she was bathing her month-old baby. ‘My hands are wet. I'll pick it up when I'm finished here.'

‘Hurry up, then!' Hannah had no patience now, and expected attention immediately she demanded it.

To take her mother-in-law's mind off the newspaper, Jenny said, ‘I still can't get over Peter Tait giving up his fine job last year and going to sea. And then joining the R.N.V.R. with Mick. If he'd stayed at the shipyard, he'd have been exempt.'

‘Peter's a good laddie,' Hannah observed. ‘You should stick to him, Lizann, for there's some men …' She tailed off, looking more confused than ever.

‘Lizann broke off with Peter, d'you not mind?'

‘Oh aye, he wed that …' Hannah's eyes swivelled away, darkening with the thought that there was something there she didn't want to remember. Even this left her troubled mind in the next instant. ‘You got another man, though, didn't you, Lizann?'

‘Lizann married George Buchan, but he was drowned. Mick and me called this wee lad after him.' She poked her tiny son, who gurgled with glee.

‘George Buchan?' Hannah muttered, reflectively. ‘Aye, I mind something about him. Did he nae come from Cullen?'

Jenny was delighted at this. ‘That's right,' she encouraged.

‘But there was something bad about him.'

‘He wasn't bad. Lizann was truly happy with him.'

‘Are you nae Lizann?'

‘I'm Jenny, Mick's wife.'

Her eyes clearing a little, Hannah said, ‘Jenny Cowie, I mind now.'

Although she had been Jenny Jappy – a comic name really – for almost a year, she bit back a correction. It was a step in the right direction that Hannah remembered her maiden name. Jenny had dried her wriggling infant and was putting on a clean napkin before the older woman spoke again. ‘Mick and Jenny, Lizann and Peter,' she said, in a sing-song chant. ‘Mick and Jenny, Lizann and Peter.'

Jenny sighed. ‘Lizann and George. Say it, Hannah. Lizann and George.'

Hannah shook her head stubbornly. ‘Lizann and Peter!'

Jenny gave up and concentrated on manoeuvring her squirming baby into his vest and nightgown, then pinned up the foot to form a bag so that his feet wouldn't be cold. Taking him over to the fireside, she laid him on his grandmother's lap. ‘Here, take Georgie till I empty his bath.'

Hannah's crooked hands went round the little bundle, her expression softening as she crooned, ‘Who's his Mammy's little dearie, then?'

Jenny lifted the enamel bath from the floor, and took it outside to pour down the drain, then she dried it thoroughly before hanging it up on a nail at the back porch, smiling as she heard Hannah making baby sounds and chuckling to herself.

‘He minds me right on Mick when he was a bairn,' she said, when Jenny took him from her.

‘So he should,' Jenny laughed. ‘He's Mick's son.'

‘Aye, so he is.' But Hannah didn't look convinced of this.

When Jenny came down from settling the baby into his crib, she said, ‘Are you ready for your bed and all?'

‘It's early yet, isn't it?'

‘We'll wait a while if you like, but I'd like to get all Georgie's things washed, and I've a pile of ironing to do.'

‘Oh, if it's like that, you'd better put me to my bed right now!'

Hannah sounded offended, but Jenny didn't argue, it wasn't worth it. ‘Right, I'll give you a lift up.' She hoisted her mother-in-law out of her seat, and then, supporting her round the waist and taking nearly all her weight, helped her through to her room. ‘Shoes off first,' she said brightly, making Hannah sit on the bed, ‘then stockings.'

Hannah submitted to the nightly routine as if she were no older than her grandson, and Jenny removed layers of clothes before struggling to get her into her winceyette nightgown and woollen cardigan – she always felt cold. ‘That's you ready, then,' she said, swinging Hannah's pathetically thin legs up on to the bed.

She wasn't grateful. Glaring malevolently at Jenny as the bedclothes were tucked round her, she spat out, ‘You canna wait to get rid o' me, can you? I'm just in your road.'

‘That's stupid! I just want you settled before I start washing.'

Hannah's expression changed, her voice took on its usual complaining tone. ‘There'll maybe come a day when you've to depend on somebody else to do everything for you.'

Jenny patted her hand. ‘Aye, I suppose there will. Now, I'll leave the light on for you to read a while, and I'll come back and put it out.'

She went outside to the standpipe to fill a pail with cold water to soak the dirty nappies overnight, then she filled the kettle and two pots to have hot water to wash the rest of the baby clothes. That done, she laid past the Johnson's powder and the zinc and castor oil ointment, then started to sweep up the crumbs Hannah had dropped from her mouth at suppertime. Looking after her was more tiring than attending to wee Georgie, Jenny thought; not that she minded doing it, but there were times, like tonight, when she was so tired it would have been heaven just to sit down and relax for a while.

Not for the first time, Jenny wished that Mick hadn't volunteered. He'd been a great help to her when he was on leave over Christmas and New Year, when she'd been so big and heavy the smallest jobs had been an awful effort for her, but she could still do with him at home. Babsie Berry had done her best for two days after wee Georgie was born at the beginning of January, but the cleaning, cooking, washing, running up and down the stairs with trays, topped by attending to Hannah, had been too much for her. She hadn't wanted to give up but hadn't argued much when she was ordered home. And so, Jenny thought, with a slight shake of her head, her lying-in time had been cut drastically short. Still, she was young, she could cope, and when Hannah got on her nerves, as she so often did, she just had to remind herself how much the old woman loved wee Georgie. Besides, it would soon be two months since Mick had gone back to his ship, so it shouldn't be long till he was home again.

Having cheered herself, Jenny laid the ironing blanket over the table and picked up the iron she'd been heating at the fire. She still had yesterday's washing to attend to.

The snow was getting deeper and deeper every day, and Lizann's shoes and the old coat were almost falling apart with being wet so much. She had overcome the first problem, to a certain extent, by cutting up some old canvas she found and making bags to tie round her shoes, but she couldn't do anything about the coat. She had no money to pay rent, let alone buy clothes. When she gave up her room she had told her landlady she'd found somewhere else, but she was actually having to take shelter anywhere she could. She had slept in what had once been a sailmaker's shed for a week until the roof was blown off. She had crouched under a bridge once, but she'd been so cold and stiff in the morning she could hardly walk. Then she had found a ruined house with broken windows, but she hadn't had a wink of sleep for the wind howling in and the flurries of snow it brought with it.

Her homelessness was not her only hardship. She hadn't had a proper meal for weeks, only the odd cup of tea and a scone from a customer. She was exhausted, therefore, and weak with hunger, when she trailed down to the harbour one early morning in February. Her plight worsened when she saw that Murdo's boat had not been out, and only two of the others had braved the storm. Their prices would be so high she'd not be able to buy much, which meant less takings and even less could be bought tomorrow. She was caught in a vicious spiral, and where would it end?

With her creel only half-full, she struggled up the hill and ploughed slowly along what she hoped was the road, though the snow was so deep she couldn't really tell. Her heart was pounding from the exertion of lifting one leaden foot after the other when the old picture flashed into her mind. It had been her good luck token, and if she hadn't had to sell it, things might have gone better for her. It did not enter her poor benumbed brain that her bad luck had begun before that, with her husband's death, because she had become convinced that George's drowning was God's punishment for their sin in Yarmouth.