The New Breadmakers (7 page)

Catriona didn’t think illicit sex was such a good idea herself, but she wouldn’t have branded anyone as a dreadful sinner and bound for hell because of it. (Probably because she’d had a brief indulgence in it herself.) She believed sex education was important and worried about Fergus and Andrew, although Andrew was only fifteen. Nevertheless, she felt Melvin should have spoken to them about the facts of life and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and other problems, and told him so. When Melvin couldn’t (or didn’t want to) cope with what she was talking about, he’d dismiss her with ‘Aw, shut up!’ or ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ This time, it was ‘You’re mad. Fergus is twenty-three years of age. He’ll know more about all that than you do.’

That was probably true. But one thing was certain – he hadn’t learned anything from Melvin. Years ago, she’d asked Melvin to speak to Fergus but at that time she’d just got ‘Aw, shut up!’

She would have tried to talk to the boys herself, but she really didn’t know much about the practicalities from a male point of view. Anyway, it was so embarrassing. She wished there were books on the subject. The only ones she’d ever heard of were by a Dr Marie Stopes –
Married Love
was one. She couldn’t remember what the other was called, but neither seemed to fit the problem of educating two boys about sex.

Slowly, as if reluctant to leave it behind, she walked away from the building in which she’d once enjoyed her brief spell of contentment. Not long after she’d passed what had once been ‘her close’, she felt one of her tension headaches developing. It was then she suddenly thought to herself, ‘I can’t go on like this for the rest of my days. I’ve got to get away and live my own life.’

But how? Where could she live? How could she afford to pay a rent and keep herself and Andrew, who wanted to start his physiotherapy training soon? Fergus was due to leave Aberdeen College of Music and Drama and would also need money to survive. A sudden thought made her feel faint with apprehension. What if, by some miracle, she had enough money and they didn’t understand, didn’t want to stick with her? Andrew got on with his dad better than most people. And she wasn’t Fergus’s real mother, only his stepmother. She got on a lot better with him now than she used to when he was a child. He had been a terrible torment one way and another both to Andrew and to her. She had tried her best to be patient and understanding towards him, but he had been so very difficult to cope with that sometimes she’d lost her temper with him. Now he was older and, as far as she could see, had got over most of his personality problems, he seemed a much happier and better-balanced person altogether.

Fergus had been through such a terrible time before she’d come on the scene. Catriona would never forget Melvin telling her how Fergus’s mother, Betty, had died of TB. She had lain on the settee in the living room, in the flat in Dessie Street. Betty had been alone all day with only baby Fergus beside her. When Melvin finished his shift in the bakehouse, he’d come upstairs to the flat and start cleaning it and polishing the floor. Betty, he said, always felt guilty and would try to get up and do it herself, but he always assured her that he would manage. She wasn’t to worry.

Why was he worrying about the bloody floor? Why hadn’t he employed a housekeeper or a nurse or anybody while Betty was still alive and needed help? Why didn’t he put Fergus into a nursery?

After Betty had died and a few years before Catriona and Melvin married, he had given Fergus to Lizzie, the horrible, neurotic next-door neighbour, to look after. By the time Catriona married Melvin, Fergus was five and already his character had been formed (ruined, in her opinion) by Melvin and Lizzie. He was a sly, devious torment of a boy. First of all he tormented her, then Andrew after he was born. She knew it wasn’t the child’s fault. She never gave up trying to undo the harm that Melvin and Lizzie had done. Eventually, she believed, it had paid off. He had still been a bit of a worry after he had started school – there had been complaints about him tormenting other pupils. However, when he reached his teens he became interested and then completely absorbed in music. It certainly kept him out of trouble, although Melvin had expected Fergus to follow him into the bakery business and eventually inherit and carry on ‘the good name of McNair’s’. To see Fergus, long-haired and dreamy-eyed, strumming at a guitar, made Melvin furious. ‘It’s all your fault,’ he accused Catriona. ‘You encourage him.’

That was true in a way. Fergus had been in seventh heaven (not that he was a person who normally showed his emotions) when he had been offered a place in Aberdeen College of Music and Drama, and she had encouraged him to accept it despite Melvin’s opposition. Indeed, she had done everything she could to help him get there and it had meant fighting Melvin every inch of the way.

Fergus had grown into a tall, skinny lad of nineteen with a pale, lean face and dark, shadowed eyes. He and Andrew seemed to rub along quite well now. They never quarreled and, in fact, Fergus seemed quite fond of Andrew and was even teaching him how to play the guitar. The lessons usually ended with them both becoming helpless with laughter. Andrew had no musical talent whatsoever and accepted the fact with his usual good humour. Andrew did have a talent for drawing, though, and had sketched a very good likeness of Fergus and presented him with it. Fergus looked really pleased and proud and had carefully rolled it up and packed it away in his rucksack to show off to his friends in Aberdeen.

It did her heart good to see the boys together on those weekends and she was genuinely sorry every time Fergus went away. He always kissed her goodbye and said, ‘Look after yourself, Mum.’ She smelled the mixture of tobacco and sour sweat from him but controlled the urge to tell him that he should wash more often. She didn’t want to spoil the loving moment. Then Andrew would go back to school, and she felt alone, with little else but the hated treadmill of housework to fill her days.

She hurried down Byres Road, not taking time to look at any of the shop windows and only taking a quick glance along Vinicombe Street to see what was on in the Lyceum. Not that she managed to go very often. In fact, she’d only been once to the cinema since Melvin had bought the television. Melvin said that it was a waste of money going to a cinema when there was plenty of entertainment in his own house. It was always
his
house,
his
television,
his
shop,
his
everything.

Her headache tightened like a band of iron around her skull. She resolved to make herself a cup of valerian or lemon balm tea as soon as she reached the shop. She always kept a stock of these herbs both in the shop and in Botanic Crescent. Herbs had been one of the things she’d become interested in in her desperate attempt to find something that would help her get off the drugs that the doctor had given her. Antidepressants and tranquillisers could be addictive, she’d been told. Not by the doctor but by a customer in the shop who’d seen her swallowing some. She believed it and was trying her best to cut down with a view to stopping altogether.

The shop was busy when she arrived and redolent with the smell of new-baked bread and spicy buns. It was the smell that attracted so many customers.

Catriona made her herb tea in the back shop and took it through to the front to sip at it in between serving. Sandra McKechnie was off again. One of the customers, a Mrs Mulvaney, said, ‘What’s that you’re drinking, hen? It looks a funny colour.’

‘Herbal tea.’

‘Herbal tea?’ The echo sounded incredulous. ‘What’s wrong wi’ a good cup of Co-op tea?’

‘Nothing. It’s just this is what helps me relax when I feel worried or have a tension headache.’

‘Huh!’ Melvin snorted. ‘Would you listen to her? What’s she ever had to worry her?’

Often Catriona remembered with infinite pity and understanding how poor Sarah Fowler murdered her mother-in-law. Many’s the time, and this was one of them, when she could have committed murder herself.

‘Here,’ Mrs Mulvaney laughed, ‘it’s time you sold some of that in yer shop, hen. There’s plenty folk around here that’s got worried and sore heads. Ye’d make a fortune.’

Melvin glared at the woman. ‘Aye, well, it’s just as well it’s not
her
shop. Selling dried grass could soon pull the plug on any business and it’s just the sort of stupid thing she’d do.’

He didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word loyalty and had never had any compunction about making a fool of her in front of people. He was the stupid one. He had no idea how much he kept tempting her, forcing her down the path of murder. He’d enjoy a right good laugh if she told him. He never gave her – or anyone else for that matter – any credit for anything. He was always the clever one. Well, maybe he wasn’t all that clever.

The thought of Mrs Mulvaney and what she’d said about herbs stuck in her mind. She gave Mrs Mulvaney credit for what might be quite a good idea. There might well be a market for herbs and herbal remedies. Perhaps not to sell in a baker’s shop but, if not in McNair’s bakery – where? She didn’t know the answer to that but the idea gradually formed into a dream. She began reading more and more, not only about herbs and herbal treatments, but about other alternative therapies too. It was a fascinating subject. There was such a wide variety of therapies, including aromatherapy, acupuncture and homeopathy.

‘Your nose is never out of a book these days,’ Melvin complained. ‘I’ve spent a fortune buying a television for you to watch and you sit there with your nose in a book.’ He snatched the book from her, looked at it and jeered, ‘You’re getting a right hypochondriac, reading all this weird stuff. It’s a shrink you need to see. You’re going off your nut.’

She dreamed about getting premises of her own one day and perhaps renting out consulting rooms to various therapists at the back and selling herbs and pills and potions in a shop at the front.

Oh, what a wonderful dream it was. But she could never make it a reality unless she had capital. She needed money. The only way she could think of was if Melvin died and she inherited the house and the bakery. She’d immediately sell the house. That would give her enough capital and also enough to buy a cosy wee place like the one she’d had before. She could become successful in her own right, she felt sure. In her dreams, she saw herself getting the capital and becoming successful. In reality, she knew that Melvin would insult her even from the grave. Years ago, he’d told her that he meant to leave everything to Fergus. And he would.

But there was bound to be some way. And if there was a way, she’d find it.

‘Get that bloody animal out of here while there’s food on the table,’ Hodge Hunter’s coarse voice sawed through the shadowy room. ‘Do ye want to poison us all with the filthy beast?’

‘Now, now,’ his wife said, half laughing but in obvious distress, ‘wee Patch is just as clean as you or me.’ But she lifted the dog into her arms and hurried with it out of the room.

Sammy kept his head down and made a pretence of enjoying his food.

‘You’re a great cook, Mother,’ he told her when she returned. ‘Every Sunday you surpass yourself. I don’t know how you manage it. This is absolutely delicious.’

The old woman’s face lit up with pleasure and gratitude.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, son.’

‘He’d say that even if it tasted like shit.’

‘You know I mean it, Mother. I always look forward to your cooking.’

He wanted to say a lot more but his mother always pleaded with him beforehand to try his best to keep quiet and not anger his father.

‘It only makes him worse, son. He just takes it out on me after you’ve gone.’

For her sake, he did his best to keep quiet. He sometimes remarked to Catriona that his father and Melvin were a right pair. Melvin was one of the few people he’d ever seen his father get on with. They sometimes met at the ex-servicemen’s club in town and reminisced about the war and their time in the forces. His father was also a Mason and always on his best behaviour at his Masonic meetings. There he was on good terms with one of the local ministers, a local doctor, a councillor and a lawyer. His father took great pride in being well thought of and respected by those he regarded as the local ‘big-wigs’. He judged Melvin, as a successful businessman, to be in this category, even though Melvin was not a Mason. Ordinary working men, his father despised. Unless they had been in the forces or had ‘fought for their country’, as he liked to put it.

The weekly Sunday visit was a terrible strain on Sammy. It upset him deeply to see how his father treated his mother, but there was nothing he could do about it. His mother refused to allow him to do anything about it. The only compensation was the stolen time his mother spent with him during the week when she was out for her shopping. Instead of going to the Co-op in Balornock, which was nearer, she’d hurry down to Springburn, do her shopping and then come to his house. He’d cook her lunch and they’d talk. Sometimes he even managed to make her laugh. She always brought the dog with her now and she would proudly show Sammy the tricks she’d taught it to perform.

As he watched her lavish love on the little terrier, he blessed the day he had given it to her. She spoke to it as if it was a true friend and it obviously gave her comfort as well as company. He had never seen her so happy, so content.

On his Sunday visits, he put up with his father’s boasts about his important Masonic friends with as much patience and good grace as he could. This was somewhat easier to do as he didn’t have such a critical opinion of the Masons as he had of the Orange Order. At least, as far as he could make out, the Masons weren’t religious bigots. There were Catholics, Protestants and even, so he’d been told, Jewish Masons.

However, the mere fact that his father went on and on so much about the Masons made Sammy vow never to have anything to do with them. The mere fact that his father was one of them soured his view. There must be something wrong with them if they accepted his father.

He escaped from the house and strode thankfully and speedily away, nearly forgetting to turn round and wave to his mother. Usually the sight of her thin, bent figure and pale, sad face at the window haunted him for the rest of the day, but now, clutching Patch in her arms, she waved back at him quite cheerily.