The Sunday Girls (3 page)

Danny gave an impish grin. ‘Stovies for our tea tonight, I think.’

I grinned back at him. Granny Neill’s stovies were a legend and the mainstay of her family’s nourishment. This dish, made with large slices of potatoes and onions cooked in a large dollop of dripping, was usually served with thick slices of bread.

Suddenly Hattie appeared on the opposite side of the road and all my culinary thoughts disappeared. We watched as she weaved her way through the crowds of noisy children. Never one to hurry or even get harassed, she glided gracefully upwards. She was smartly dressed in her Sunday best outfit – a long-sleeved crêpe-de-Chine frock almost the same grey shade as the string of pearls around her neck.

She didn’t see us as she glided like a grey wraith into the close but we quickly followed her retreating figure, watching in amusement as she skilfully avoided the grimy children.

It was only because we were hot on her heels that we witnessed her complete surprise at the new arrival. In fact, she was almost speechless when faced with the crying baby in the makeshift bed which was a drawer from the wardrobe. Danny and I coming up behind her also added to her discomfort and she looked nonplussed at the scene.

‘When did this happen?’ she asked, when she had recovered her voice. She nodded towards the baby. ‘I thought you had another month to go, Lily?’

‘Well, babies come when they’re ready,’ snapped her mother. ‘We couldn’t let you know because you were working as usual.’ Nan Neill sometimes mimicked her daughter’s posh tones.

Hattie disregarded this sarcasm. ‘Well, what a coincidence,’ she said, glancing at the assembled company of relatives and neighbours alike. ‘Mrs Pringle had a daughter today as well – in the nursing home, of course.’ There was a slight peevishness in her tone, almost as if Mum had gone ahead and had Lily early to keep up with Mrs Pringle.

Although I didn’t think she meant to be unkind, this comparison wasn’t lost on Mum who lay back on her threadbare pillows with a look of exasperation on her tired face.

Dad leapt up from the bed and led Hattie over to the baby. ‘Come and meet Lily. She wasn’t born in a posh nursing home but we love her very much.’

Hattie stuttered. Dropping her pseudo-posh accent in her confusion. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest anything else. She’s a right bonny wee baby and I’m glad you’re over it, Lily.’ She stopped and seemed to recover some of her earlier poise. ‘Now, you must get your strength back because you look all washed out.’

She stopped again when Dad glared at her.

‘But that’s only natural, isn’t it? I mean having a baby at your …’

Dad glared once more and Hattie became silent.

She fiddled with her gloves and turned her attention to her son. ‘Now, Danny, are you coming home with me or are you staying with Granny?’

‘I’ll just come with you because Ann is staying with Granny tonight.’ He gave me a large grin. He didn’t help matters when he added, ‘I’ll not be coming just now as I haven’t been to Lochee yet to see Ma and Dad Ryan.’

A strange expression flitted over Hattie’s face but whether it was because of the mention of the Ryan family it was difficult to say. She turned away, her posh manner now back firmly in place.

‘Well, I’ll be off.’

In the Neill household, everyone knew that Hattie had become a right lady since her move to the Pringle family – ‘right gentrified’, as Granny called it.

Granny now turned with a look of undisguised glee on her face but not before the exit of Danny with his mother. ‘Good for you, Lily. You fairly upstaged our Hattie with your unexpected arrival. Did you see her face? Put out of joint it was and her mouth was so wide open that she could have swallowed one of Horatio Leslie’s fish fillets whole.’

We all laughed at the memory of her comical face and we were still laughing when she reappeared. Poking her head around the door, her cheeks red from the exertion of climbing the stairs again, she said, ‘I forgot to say, because of all this kerfuffle. Mrs Pringle’s wee lass is to be called Joy because, after all these years, they had given up hope of ever having another child.’ She darted back out.

Because of her quick departure, she didn’t hear my parents murmur to each other. ‘No, neither did we think we’d have another baby.’

As usual, Granny had the last word. ‘That Hattie makes me so mad. Wee Lily’s birth is looked on as a kerfuffle while Mrs Pringle’s Joy is treated by her as the birth of the blinking century.

Dad merely smiled tenderly at Mum and held her hand. I thought it was so romantic.

I was fast asleep when the knock came to the door but the whispered voices echoing in the lobby wakened me. At first I thought the commotion was some sort of dream – a fantasy of muffled and anxious voices that somehow were distorted and amplified in my head. They weren’t loud – more like stage whispers – which I think made the conversation more sinister to my ears. I certainly felt there was something malevolent in the hoarseness of the voice. Something, I’m not sure what, filled me with a dreadful fear. There was a nagging feeling of foreboding even before the words penetrated my brain.

Wiping sleep from my eyes, I slipped out of bed and opened the door of the small bedroom. My rough, flannelette nightgown flapped around my ankles, impeding my progress, and I felt the coolness from the linoleum floor against my feet. I could make out Granny’s voice but the other person’s whispers sounded strange – probably because they were punctuated with harsh sobs. Because the voice sounded unfamiliar, it came as a great surprise to see Rita, our neighbour, standing at the open door.

Granny was putting on her thick coat. I could see her silhouette outlined by the gas lamp on the stair.

‘What’s wrong, Granny?’ I asked, aware of a cold feeling in my stomach.

The two women stopped whispering and swung around to face me. Rita’s hand swept up to her face as if to shield herself from some dreaded thing but I could see she had been crying.

Granny put a hand on my shoulder and tried to lead me back to my tiny bedroom. ‘Just go back to bed, Ann. I’ll not be long and Grandad is here to look after you.’ Although she sounded calm, the look of distress on her face was evident.

‘There’s something wrong with Mum, isn’t there?’ I shouted, trying to keep the awful fear at bay – a fear that was threatening to erupt any moment. ‘I want to come with you.’

I ran back to my tiny room. Tugging the scratchy nightgown over my head, I searched in the darkness for my frock and sandals. I then darted out beside the two women who immediately exchanged a wary glance. I could well imagine Granny putting a finger to her lips and saying, ‘Not a word to Ann, Rita.’ But instead she busied herself by taking my tatty old trench coat down from the hook behind the door. ‘Here, you’d better take your coat – the night air will be really cold.’

With that she pushed me gently through the door, leaving Grandad behind looking bewildered and dishevelled in his hastily-donned clothes. He also looked extremely sad.

Rita was quiet as we slipped down the dimly lit stairs and into the deserted Overgate. A full moon glowed in the clear sky that already had the hint of dawn at its edges. The tall grey tenements that appeared decrepit under a bright sun now looked magical in the moonlight. From somewhere in the distance, a clock struck three chimes, gentle peals that floated over this shadowy, slumbering landscape.

I turned to Granny. ‘What’s wrong with Mum? Is she not well?’ I spoke in a breathless anxious whisper, frightened of what the answer would be and also frightened to talk too loud in case I disturbed a peacefully sleeping population.

‘Well your mum has been taken to the Royal Infirmary. She took bad about an hour ago but we’re sure she’ll be as right as rain soon. Your dad is with her and we’ll have good news soon.’ She sounded reassuring.

Rita nodded. ‘Aye, just give her a day or two and she’ll be as good as new.’

We were passing a row of darkened windows when the sharp whimpering wails of a baby stabbed the quiet air. I suddenly remembered Lily.

Almost as if she read my thoughts, Rita turned with a hoarse whisper, ‘Nellie has got her and between us we’ll look after her till your mum gets better.’

These words, meant as a comforter, didn’t soothe me. I felt a dull grip of fear and also felt quite sick. Still, by the time we reached the house, I was feeling grateful because the cold night air had penetrated my coat’s thin fabric and my bare legs were chilled.

The house had strange unlived-in look. The fire was still out and the ashes lay in a grey dead mass in the grate. There was also a feeling of desolation which matched my mood exactly.

To my surprise, I noticed that the bedclothes had been stripped from the big double bed. My own closet bed was untouched but the other one lay with its blue and white-striped mattress exposed.

A large wet patch was visible, as if someone had recently scrubbed the ticking. I couldn’t fathom it out. I knew that some small children wet their beds but surely Mum wouldn’t have been carted off to hospital for something as simple as that. I had started to hunt for sheets and blankets, a puzzled frown on my face, when Rita appeared.

‘Come on out of there,’ she said. ‘We’re all in Nellie’s house and she’s making a cup of tea.’ She bustled ahead of me but then waited to firmly close the door behind me.

‘Rita, what’s the matter with Mum? I saw the bed …’ Before I could finish, she butted in. ‘Now just be quiet and behave yourself like a good lassie. After all, you’re not supposed to be here, are you?’ Her fleshy cheeks wobbled. ‘Your mum’s in good hands at the DRI and no doubt she’ll be on her feet before long.’

Duly chastised, I did as I was told. Nellie’s house was almost identical to ours – one small room with no view from the tiny window except the grey brickwork of another tenement. Under this minuscule window, the small black sink and the coal bunker lay together and even the furniture looked the same. In fact, the two rooms could have been interchanged at any point and I doubt if we would have known the difference.

A small fire was burning in the grate and beside it, still lying in her drawer and fast asleep, was the baby. I went over to gaze down at her face. Nellie had swung the arm of the gas lamp over to the opposite direction which meant Lily’s face was in shadow. In spite of this, I could still see her rosebud mouth and smooth downy cheeks. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.

Nellie came over. ‘Try and not waken her, Ann,’ she said as she buttoned up the faded frock. ‘She’s just been fed and what a real howling match it was.’

I sat beside the fire with a cup of tea clutched in my cold hands while the three women settled themselves on the edge of the bed, which like ours, was right beside the fireplace.

‘The baby was making a real racket and it’s just as well that I’m still feeding my wee lad or else we would be in Queer Street,’ said Nellie.

‘We’ll take Lily over to the Overgate later on if the hospital wants to keep her mother in for a few days,’ said Granny. ‘Ann can get a baby’s bottle and some milk when the shops open.’ She stopped. ‘I’ve just noticed, Nellie, where’s your man?’ She nodded at the empty bed where it was obvious that someone had recently been lying.

She laughed. ‘He’s upstairs with Rita’s man – having a smoke and a gossip no doubt.’

Granny uttered a huge sigh that almost rocked her entire body. ‘Well, if we don’t hear anything by six o’clock, then Ann and I will go up to the hospital to see what the news is.’

I let this conversation wash over me. My fear had now materialised into a cold feeling of numbness. I just had to believe that Mum would get well again and come home – not just for Lily’s sake but for us all. Another thing I knew for sure was that the women, despite their outward cheerfulness, were putting on a face for my benefit.

The memory of Rita’s harsh sobs in the Overgate lobby was still fresh in my mind. A battered old clock ticked merrily on the mantelpiece – a clock bought from a market stall or maybe the second hand shop across the street. Nearly everyone bought their household goods from this shop. The items had all seen better days but when money was almost nonexistent, the second-hand dealer’s prices were a huge selling point.

The clock suddenly chimed five. Dawn didn’t make its glorious appearance at this small window – not like Granny’s generously sized window above the fish shop. Her window greeted the day and the sunshine like a welcome friend.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, I wished desperately that Danny was here. Asleep at his house in the Westport, neither Hattie nor he was aware of this terrible drama.

The women had also now lapsed into silence and the only sounds in the room were Granny’s slight wheeze and the relentless merry ticking of the clock. An hour later Granny stood up and reached for her coat.

‘Right then, we’ll head up to the hospital to see what the news is.’ Her lined face had a grey pallor so unlike her normal ruddy colouring.

Rita held up her hand, her head cocked towards the door. ‘Wait a minute. I think I hear footsteps on the stair, Nan.’

I held my breath, listening to the unmistakable sound of a tack-tipped boot scraping against the worn stone stairs, a sound that matched the slow beat of a drum.

‘That’s Johnny’s step right enough,’ said Rita. ‘I just hope that Lily is fine.’

There was a sound as he first went towards our house then the steps echoed along the passage as he retraced his progress back to Nellie’s door.

As soon as we saw his face we knew the news was bad. In spite of being a handsome man, he now looked terrible. His face was the colour of putty with dark pouches under his eyes and a blue unshaven shadow around his cheeks and jowls. He wore a knitted scarf around the frayed shirt neck, the ends hanging down over the front of the threadbare jacket. He was not wearing any socks.

The women opened their mouths to speak but he held up one hand while the other hand covered his eyes. ‘Lily died an hour ago.’ His voice was rough with unshed tears. ‘The doctors just couldn’t stop the bleeding.’

I propelled myself across the room like a rocket, almost knocking him through the still-open door. I buried my head in the woolly muffler and I felt the roughness of his face. It was like sandpaper.