The Tangling of the Web (16 page)

Sally looked up expectantly.

‘I was just wondering … that is, I have two tickets for the Charles Aznavour concert and my daughter was going to go with me but she’s not keen on him. And she says she would rather stay with my wife …’

‘How is your wife?’

David blew out his cheeks. ‘It just not fair what’s happening to her. She never complains and I know that she’s riddled with guilt about the burden, as she sees it, the girls and I have to cope with. And do you know, we just wish it had been us that was stricken and not her.’

Talking about his wife’s condition was obviously painful for David, so Sally quickly changed the subject. ‘Back to Charles Aznavour,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t mind going with you on a strictly platonic basis.’

‘Sally, I am a happily married man. I’m only asking you out for the night to use up the spare ticket. And as they are giving the tickets away, lots of other police officers and friends that you know will be there,’ was David’s quick reply.

No verbal response was forth coming from Sally, but silently she truthfully told herself,
Well, it’s such a long time since someone was loving to me, and bed, especially, with you, would be wonderful, but I’ll just have to settle for a date with conceited and over-rated Charles Aznavour and the rest of the Edinburgh Police Force.

Sally needed to sleep, but slumber kept evading her. She hoped when her eyes did eventually close and she was comatose she could be spared going over the happenings of the day. After tossing and turning for two hours, she decided to get up and think about where she was going and who would be going with her.

Top of the priority list was straightening out the two tenancies. There was no doubt she would become landlady of both bars because of Ginny’s backing. But being responsible for the two businesses would mean her running between the two pubs and therefore she would require a good, trustworthy manager in each. Josie was the obvious and good choice for the Four Marys, but where would she get a dependable, mature, hard-working person for the Royal Stuart?

Idly stirring the steaming-hot cocoa that she had made herself in the vain hope it would help her doze when she did go back to bed, she thought back to what Ginny had said about why she had helped her. ‘You know Sally, you are always asking me why I helped you, trained you and showed you that I trusted you, and you think it was because of my sense of wrath about what Harry had done to you? No such thing. You see, I have found out that as you go through life, most of the people you give a hand up to, when they are down, repay you with loyalty and service. You are a prime example of this theory.’ Ginny had stopped and looked about the bar. ‘This bar has been dragged out of the pits by you, Sally, and made into a happy hostelry – a place where male and female customers can get good food and drink in clean and pleasant surroundings. Look,’ Ginny went on whilst her hand swept the room, ‘at what you achieved in three years. So remember when you’re picking staff that family and then people who have a need will, not always though, be your best bet. They’ll give you loyalty and peace of mind.’

Taking another sip of the comforting chocolate drink, Sally contemplated. What if she was to give Nancy the same chance that Ginny had given her? It would take her off the streets. Give her a purpose in life … a reason to go on. There was a problem, though: she could not be serving behind the bar in the Four Marys. Sally giggled when she thought of how some of the bright sparks might kid the life out of Nancy by asking for ‘a double Johnnie Walker and a quickie round the back’. Sally conceded that would never do, but putting her into the Royal Stuart was a good option. Nancy’s notoriety wouldn’t be well known there, and Sally could be assured that once she had her up and trained and left to get on with things that the place would be run properly by someone who, no matter what else, had intelligence, presence and personality.

Her next consideration was the family. She knew now she would be in a position to get a better house soon and that she would have no trouble supporting Helen and Bobby through college. Smirking, she acknowledged that her wee scams, which every licensed premises had, would more than pay for that. Harry was yesterday’s news. In fact, she wouldn’t have him back now. He had done her a favour. If he hadn’t given her the push she would still be serving in the Co-op, and here she was a successful landlady. But it was Margo, her firstborn, who was breaking her heart. What had she done that had alienated her? She thought about her own relationship with Flora. There was no use thinking about Peggy: she had given her life, right enough, but she had been a cuckoo and had therefore never behaved in a motherly way towards any of her children except Daisy and Luke.

Now Flora was different. She was just so maternal that Sally knew no matter what she could rely on her. Had she not sided with her when Harry left? Sally felt hot tears begin to burn her eyes when her thoughts strayed again to Margo. She still couldn’t believe Margo had been pregnant and had never told her – never cried out to her when her little boy was stillborn.

Sally had gone to the Eastern General Hospital Maternity Unit in Seafield and asked if she could see Margo. The duty nurse advised that that would not be possible because Margo already had three visitors at her bedside: her husband, her father and his friend. Throwing the bouquet of red roses into the bucket, Sally had just turned to leave when Johnny called out to her, ‘Mrs Stuart, wait.’

‘Why?’ replied Sally.

‘It’s just that perhaps this is not the time for you and Margo to make up. I know you’re sorry for all you didn’t do for her … ’

‘Didn’t do for her?’ Sally cried. ‘Now what else could I have done other than breathe for her?’

Johnny looked abashed. ‘You know what Margo’s like. If she has a mind to she could convince you the Crucifixion was just.’

Sally put her hand out to Johnny and he accepted it. He wasn’t the lad she would have chosen for Margo. A bit on the glaikit side he was, but now she felt sorry for him. His life was difficult now. He was intelligent enough to work out the truth in everything, but he was unable to stand up to his domineering wife. ‘If ever I can help you,’ Sally managed to utter through her sobs, ‘just come to either of my two pubs. You won’t have to explain, but I will give you all the help you need. By the way, only in the Four Marys and the Royal Stuart pubs, where I will soon be the landlady, am I still known as Mrs Stuart; everywhere else, and especially with family and friends, like you, it’s plain Sally Mack.’

Margo knocked loudly on the door of the house her father now shared with Maggie, but there was no reply. It was true her father had distanced himself from her since she had announced that she was pregnant.

‘Pregnant,’ he had shrieked, putting up his hands as if to ward off an evil spell. ‘Hey, don’t you realise that will make me a granddad, and I’m much too young to be labelled that.’

This reaction had stumped Margo, who up till then had believed she was the light of her dad’s life and anything she did would be welcomed by him. But now he was saying he didn’t wish to be grandfather to his first grandchild – her first child. Why? But he had come to hold her hand when her baby had died.

Maggie, she remembered, had been delighted about the baby, and within days she was knitting matinee coats and bootees. It was while she was clicking away with the needles one evening that she timidly asked Margo what her mother, Sally, had said about becoming a granny? Margo just shrugged her shoulders and coldly replied, ‘Don’t know. You see, I haven’t bothered to tell her.’

Rapping hard on the door again, Margo wondered where Maggie could be. She had called in at the Co-op where she worked but no one seemed to know where she was today. The noise of Margo’s knocking brought Maggie’s neighbour, Mrs Tyree, to her door.

‘Oh, it’s you, Margo. You’re wasting your time banging away there. Police called in last night and locked up the door. Seems Maggie was taken ill up the town and they carted her off to the hospital, or maybe the morgue. Wouldn’t tell me what exactly had happened to her. But then that’s the polis for you.’

Calling back a hasty thanks to Mrs Tyree, Margo sped out on to East Thomas Street and hailed a taxi. ‘Royal Infirmary, driver,’ she exclaimed and then sank back on the seat to relax.

At the hospital, Margo called at the Porter’s Lodge and enquired after Maggie. The porter, dressed in his smart uniform, which assisted in buoying up his over-inflated ego, consulted his lists before informing Margo of the ward number, but before she could go into the main corridor he quickly added, ‘Just hold on. That is a locked ward and I have to ring to see if you will be allowed entrance.’

‘But,’ spluttered Margo, ‘it’s my…’ she hesitated before saying, ‘… my stepmother to be that I’ve come to see. She has no one but my dad and me.’

After consulting with the ward again, the porter nodded, ‘It’s okay. They’ve checked with Miss … your stepmother to be and you can go on up.’ He went on to give her directions to the ward and then cautioned, ‘Wait by the entrance until someone comes to take you through.’

On arrival at the ward door, Margo was alarmed to see through the glass door that a male nurse was approaching with a bunch of keys. Selecting one, he unlocked the door and with a jerk of his head he indicated to Margo to come in, and he walked with her to Maggie’s bed.

Margo just couldn’t believe the frail, aged woman lying in the bed was Maggie. She was paler than death, and a bruise on her cheek along with several scratches on her forehead were quite alarming.

‘What on earth happened?’ Margo managed to splutter.

Wearily raising her hand, Maggie replied, ‘Dinnae fret. I’d just had enough.’

‘What? But you love my dad. And the ink is no quite dry on his divorce from my mum and when it does you and he will get married.’

‘Don’t you understand your dad’s dumped me for one of your auld classmates so I felt … there was nothing left for me. Decided, I did, I’d be better out of it. Cannae stand being the laughing stock who got her comeuppance.’

‘My dad’s left you for one of my chums? Don’t be daft, Maggie,’ Margo cackled.

‘But he has. And you know weeks ago, someone at work, who I was telling what I was going to wear at our wedding, told me he was singing duets with a young lassie. But I didn’t believe her. Then your dad didn’t come home two nights ago. So the following night I went up to that new club in Tollcross where he has been singing and . . ’ Maggie started to sob quietly. ‘And then I saw it for myself. Cuddling and fondling a lassie the same age as you. Brazen he was when I asked him to consider what he was doing. “Just come to my senses. I’m leaving you,” was his quick reply.’ Maggie was now crying uncontrollably. ‘Even had … the cheek … to say I was past it and he wanted to spend the rest of his life waking up beside young Felicity . . ’

‘Felicity. Oh no, not Felicity, behind the bike sheds at school, Gibson?’

‘None other. So that’s why I climbed the Scott Monument. Don’t survive if you jump from there, you don’t. But … as luck would have it a young bobby came up to rescue me … Wish he hadn’t bothered.’

‘Oh Maggie, this cannot be true. My dad wouldn’t make a fool of himself with someone like Felicity. No. Not my dad.’ Margo stopped and leant over to hug Maggie.

Sally had given a lot of thought to the present she would like to give Ginny as a token of her gratitude. She would have liked to have presented her with another diamond ring, but that she could not afford. But what she could afford was a bottle of Chanel No. 5 – the expensive preferred fragrance of both Marilyn Monroe and Ginny. Whenever Sally was in Ginny’s presence, she would inhale deeply and enjoy the wafting bouquet before promising herself that one day she too would smell sweet like Ginny.

The best place to purchase a bottle of Chanel was Jenners, the prestigious, world-famous department store on Princes Street, so Sally took herself there and asked the charming sales assistant for not one but
two
bottles of the fragrance. This was because she had decided that now she was a business lady she would have to give the right impression. At this moment in time she couldn’t afford the mandatory mink jacket, but she could stretch to the aroma.

The perfume was also purchased because she had a date with David Stock and she wished to smell fragrant and not like an overflowing ashtray.

Funny,
she thought,
that since going to work in the Four Marys I’ve got used to my clothes and hair stinking of smoke and alcohol, unlike Ginny, who always smells so sweet. But then Ginny has time to change her clothes twice daily, and her hair is washed and styled by the young up-and-coming hair stylist Charlie Miller at least three times every week. Wonder how much he charges?
Sally mused.
Could be,
she thought,
as he’s just starting out and building up a clientele, not too much.
She then shook her head and her shoulders drooped as she pictured Ginny’s new hairstyle.
That man is a genius and if I want to portray the right image I’ll just have to afford him.

Sally was surprised to find that the Charles Aznavour concert had not attracted a large audience. When it had been brought to the council’s attention that only a few tickets had been sold, they decided to try and fill the theatre by offering free tickets to their staff and also included the police and fire service in the giveaway.

When Sally had taken her seat beside David, she was surprised to find that even the council’s generosity had not resulted in anything like a full house. Charles was only into his first rendition when she appreciated why. By the third offering, David turned to her and said, ‘Sorry about this. Do you fancy a drink in the Shakespeare bar across the road?’

‘To be truthful, I don’t normally drink alcohol,’ was Sally’s whispered response, ‘but I could be persuaded to say yes – because I’ve been driven to it tonight.’

Sally had just got herself seated at a table when David returned from the bar with a large brandy for himself and an orange juice for her. Sitting down opposite her, he smiled before saying, ‘Oh, by the way, did you change your mind and go up to the infirmary to see your …’