The New Breadmakers (8 page)

‘That dog,’ he thought to himself, ‘is causing a transformation in her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she begins to find enough strength to stick up for herself and tell the old man where to get off.’

He chuckled to himself. The way things were going, it seemed a real possibility. That made him happy. He began to whistle to himself as he strode along.

In Broomknowes Road, he bumped into Julie Vincent. She had been visiting Madge and was now on her way to see her mother-in-law. As they walked along together, Julie said, ‘I enjoy having lunch with Madge and her crowd. It’s a terrible contrast at my mother-in-law’s. It’s noisy and a bit chaotic at Madge’s but …’

‘A bit?’ Sammy laughed.

‘Well, OK, but my mother-in-law’s place is like the grave in comparison. It always depresses me. And she still goes on and on about Reggie. Never mentions her late husband. It’s always Reggie. It’s not that I want to forget Reggie, or ever will forget him, but it’s awful the way she lives in the past so much. You’d think her father and mother would tell her to snap out of it. Well, not snap out of it, not using those words exactly, but you know what I mean. Her father’s a minister. He lives next door to Catriona.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘At least I managed to get out of lunch there today and settle for an afternoon visit. You must feel the same about Ruth. You loved her, but you don’t still go on and on about her, do you? What good does it do?’

‘No good at all. We’ve just to get on with our lives the best we can. They wouldn’t want us to be stuck in the past and made to feel miserable.’

‘No, that’s exactly what I feel, Sammy. I’ve tried to tell Mum that, but she just doesn’t listen.’

‘You’ve been good to Mrs Vincent, Julie. I don’t know how you survive these Sunday visits. The minister and his wife are usually there as well, Madge tells me.’

‘Yes. Talk about depressing? He says a long gloomy prayer when I arrive and then another one before he and his wife go away. I can’t stand Holy Willies. Oh, I’m sorry, Sammy. I forgot. You’re religious, aren’t you?’

‘Not a Holy Willie, I hope,’ Sammy laughed. ‘And I know what you mean about gloomy Sunday lunches. I’ve just come from one. My father is a regular church-goer and before every Sunday lunch, he murders Robert Burns’s ‘Selkirk Grace’. Sammy mimicked his father’s loud, coarse voice:

‘Some hae meat an’ cannae eat,

An’ some nae meat that want it.

But we hae meat,

An’ we can eat,

So let the Lord be thankit.’

Julie laughed. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, he sounds pretty awful.’

‘I don’t mind you saying so because it’s the truth. He’s monstrously awful.’

‘I suppose you put up with your Sundays for the sake of your mother.’

‘Exactly. I’d never go near that place if it wasn’t for my mother.

‘You’ve brothers, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but they got as far away as possible as quick as they could and I don’t blame them.’

‘Sometimes I’m tempted. To get away from Glasgow, I mean. But, apart from Mrs Vincent, I like living where I am. She tried to persuade me to move in with her. Can you imagine it? Me buried in that atmosphere all the time. I’d go stark raving bonkers. She still tries, you know.’

‘Oh, don’t, Julie. Enjoy life. Make the most of it.’

After a minute, Julie said, ‘You’re a strange man, Sammy. A real puzzle. I’ve never known what to make of you.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you belong to some religious sect like the McKechnies who live upstairs from Madge. But you don’t seem like them.’

‘I should hope not! I don’t belong to any religious sect.’

‘What is it you belong to then? Madge has told me but I’ve forgotten.’

‘The Society of Friends. Quakers.’

‘Isn’t it religious, then?’

He shrugged. ‘Not in the way you imagine.’ He thought, as he often did, of the nearest thing to dogma the Society of Friends had. It was a list of what was called ‘Queries and Advices’. One came to him now: ‘Let your life speak.’ It was the one he found most difficult.

He and Julie had to separate abruptly because Julie saw a tram car coming. ‘I’ll have to go. Nice talking to you, Sammy.’

‘And you,’ Sammy called after her. He stood for a minute watching the stylish figure in the calf-length tapered coat and flat, wide-brimmed hat race along to the tram stop, catch the pole and swing on to the tram like a seventeen-year-old girl. Yet she must be in her thirties or near enough. Unexpectedly, Sammy experienced a surge of loneliness. He was tempted to turn back and seek the noisy companionship of Alec’s place. With some difficulty, he controlled the urge. There surely must be a limit to Alec and Madge’s hospitality – for him anyway. He took advantage of their kindness far too often.

Reaching Springburn Road and his close, he took the stairs two at a time, plunged his key into the lock, then was suddenly weighed down by the silence inside the house. He could have wept. He longed for his wife. He remembered with startling vividness her loving caress. It was as if it was only a few minutes ago they’d been entwined in each other’s arms before being wrenched apart. He felt the physical pain of it. Then the anger. Anger at the bomb that had killed her. Anger at the stupidity and the cruel waste of war. Rage at his father for epitomizing all that he hated about the military. It was men like him who refused to think, who only obeyed orders, who believed in force as the only method of solving any problem.

‘A good soldier isn’t paid to think,’ he used to bawl at Sammy and his brothers. ‘A good soldier obeys orders.’

‘I know what I’d do with all your bloody Quakers,’ he was in the habit of sneering now. ‘Put them up against a wall and shoot the lot of them, as we did in the First World War. Bloody cowards!’

He knew nothing about Society of Friends, of course. Very few people did. That was the worst of not going around publicising oneself or trying to convert anyone. The fact was, right back from the time of Elizabeth Fry, members of the Society of Friends had been working on all sorts of reforms behind the scenes. Elizabeth Fry, for instance, was determined to do something to improve the lot of women prisoners in the hell-holes of jails at the time. With great courage she went in among the prisoners and worked with determination and patience to help them in every practical way she could. Eventually, she succeeded in setting in motion the reform of the whole prison system. Quakers had never lacked courage. In the past, they had been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and killed. The authorities had forbidden them to hold their meetings, but they went on meeting together and, when all the adults had been flung into jail, the children continued, even the youngest going along. But nothing stopped them. When they were banned from universities, the legal and other professions, they went into business, becoming renowned for setting a fair price and sticking to it. People were surprised and suspicious at first but then began to trust them. Their businesses grew as a result. Firms like Cadbury’s, Fry’s, Clark’s Shoes, Horniman’s Tea, Huntly & Palmer’s biscuits, to name but a few, were all started and made a success by Quakers. Most of the Quaker firms put their profits to good use, often building whole villages of decent, attractive houses for their employees – in stark contrast to the abysmal slums of the time.

Sammy blessed the day he had found the Society of Friends. It was the only place he felt he belonged. Not that he felt good enough, or courageous enough for that matter, to join. He had been what was called an ‘attender’ for years and, as far as the members were concerned, it seemed he could go on being an attender for the rest of his days. Nobody put any pressure on anyone to join. He wanted to become a full member and maybe one day he would. Meantime he was just grateful to be able to sit in the quiet meetings every Sunday morning. There he gained the strength to enable him to face his father across the lunch table, in the gloomy house on the rough track that led to Auchinairn. He tried to bring the peace of the meeting to his aid now in the empty silence of his house. But, in a meeting, any silence was meaningful and comforting because of the people there. And because of Christ’s words, ‘When two or more of you are gathered together in my name, I will be in your midst’, he could believe that Christ was with him and the others in Meetings. But no one was with him here. Nothing helped here, in the home he and Ruth had shared and had been so proud of.

He sank down on to a chair and angrily cradled his head in his hands.

Sandra McKechnie dreaded being off work. She even felt apprehensive about going home afterwards. Sleeping all night in the bakery would have been far, far better. She had come to dread every hour in the gloomy flat in Broomknowes Road, where she felt unbearably oppressed by the crush of huge Victorian furniture, a legacy from her father’s family, who had once lived in a large villa in Pollokshields. She felt overwhelmed by the dark-brown moquette settee and armchairs that sucked her into their cushioned depths. The brown chenille tablecover, with its heavy fringe and tassels, and matching curtains, that cut out the light, depressed her.

Everything was too big, too dark and too heavy – including her father. She was afraid of him but recently she had plucked up the courage to talk to her mother about what had been going on. At first her mother had been horrified and hadn’t believed her.

‘Your father’s a Jehovah’s witness and an elder in Kingdom Hall. How can you say such terrible things about him, Sandra? Your own father, who has done so much good work for Jehovah?’

That was what made it so confusing. They had all tried so conscientiously to do God’s work and to spread the Good News. Sandra’s brother, Peter, had been very clever at school and had been told by his teachers and the headmaster that he should go on to university. Peter had refused, replying that for the work he was going to do for Jehovah, he didn’t need to go to university.

He had been courting a girl called Rose Evans for a time, but he had given her up when he’d fallen in love with Jessie Connors, who was not a Jehovah’s Witness. Rose had reported him to the elders and poor Peter had been partly excommunicated. He had been forced to give up Jessie and was not allowed to speak in Kingdom Hall for more than a year. He was broken-hearted during that time, Sandra thought, not because of losing Jessie but because he was unable to put up his hand and answer the questions from the
Watchtower
study paragraphs during the services as usual. He was always first at every service to answer with an accurate quotation from the Bible. She always enjoyed the study part of the service and was intensely proud of Peter. He was so clever that she was convinced he knew the whole Bible off by heart.

Her mother said, ‘Don’t you ever repeat to Peter what you’ve just said to me. He’d be so shocked and horrified at you that he’d never get over it. Fancy you saying such things about your good Christian father,’ she kept repeating in disbelief, ‘who’s always been so conscientious in your teaching!’

Yes, he had been conscientious in that, Sandra had to admit. Even during the usual training, from the ages of five to seven, she had not been as quick and as clever as Peter. Sometimes, she had not even been a very willing pupil. She had always been shy and anxious, shrinking away from having to accompany her father around all the doors in Balornock and Springburn and everywhere else in Glasgow, it seemed, to spread the Good News and sell the
Watchtower
magazine. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he had always stood beside her at each door for support and protection. Once she’d reached the age of eight or nine, however, he would give her the magazines and tell her what to say. Then he’d knock at the door and quickly disappear out of sight, leaving her standing in acute embarrassment and fear to face whoever opened the door. She feared saying the wrong thing and letting her father and Jehovah down more than any physical danger that might befall her. She knew that they were God’s chosen people. They accepted every word in the Bible and, not only that, they lived it too. Because Jesus had said, ‘I am no part in the world, so you follow me’, they made themselves separate from everyone else. They were witnesses to the word of Jehovah, and that was why they went round knocking at every door – they were witnessing. Sandra had never been very good at it. She was too nervous and shy. These were terrible faults – she ought to have courage in spreading the Good News of the Kingdom.

Her father, like Peter, was a wonderful witness. He knew his Bible and was totally committed in spreading the word. He was also dedicated in teaching her everything she needed to know, even about the structure of the organisation. They were part of a congregation of Christians who all believed exactly the same thing, all over the earth, completely uniform in everything except language.

Would they be able to help her? she wondered. Even the thought paralysed her. There were elders, like her father, but their duty was to serve the brothers and help them with spiritual difficulties and questions. Her problem was not a spiritual one. Her mind dodged fearfully, shamefully about, trying to avoid thinking about it. She would never know how, in the end, she had managed to blurt out the words to her mother.

‘Daddy has started touching me – down there.’ The mention of genitals or anything to do with sex was strictly taboo. ‘And the last time, he actually … went all the way.’

Her mother had been so shocked she had collapsed down on to a chair. She hadn’t been able to utter a sound for a long minute. Then she’d gasped out, ‘You wicked, wicked girl!’

After that, she had avoided Sandra whenever possible, even refusing to look at her. It was terrible. Sandra began to wonder if she had imagined what had happened to her or even if, despite her instincts to the contrary, it was all right. But it was not all right. Her father came to her room at night and penetrated her again and it was painful and shameful and made her feel sick. Then she began to physically be sick, vomiting every morning. She would just manage to get to work and the privacy of the shop lavatory before the other assistants arrived. There she retched miserably until she was drained and exhausted.