The hill slopes were rustling with silence in the glimmer of the late June gloaming as Chris Ogilvie made her way up the track, litheness put by for a steady gait. On the bending slopes that climbed ahead to the last of the daylight far in the lift the turning grass was dried and sere, a June of drought and swithering heat, the heather bells hung shrunken and small, bees were grumbling going to their homes, great bumbling brutes Chris brushed from her skirts. Half-way up she stopped a minute and rested and looked down with untroubled eyes at the world below, sharp-set and clear each item of it in that brightness before the dark came down, mile on mile of coarse land and park rolling away to the distant horizons that tumbled south to her forty years in the distant Howe.
She looked down at herself with a smile for her gear and then took to the climb of the brae again, following the windings of the half-hidden path, choked with whins and the creep of the heather since the last time men had trauchled up here. Then, greatly cupped and entrenched and stone-shielded, she saw the summit tower above her, so close and high here the play of the gloaming it seemed to her while she stood and breathed if she stretched up her hand she could touch the lift--the bending bowl of colours that hung like a meikle soap-bubble above her head.
Treading through the staying drag of the heather she made her way under the shoggle of the walls to a high, cleared space with stones about, to the mass of stone where once the astronomers had come a hundred years before to take an eclipse of the moon or sun--some fairely or other that had bothered them and set them running and fashing about and peering up at the lift and gowking, and yammering their little supposings grave: and all long gone and dead and forgotten. But they'd left a great mass of crumbling cement that made a fine seat for a wearied body--a silly old body out on a jaunt instead of staying at home with her work, eident and trig, and seeing to things for the morn--that the morn she might get up and see to more things.
That the reality for all folk's days, however they clad its grim shape in words, in symbols of cloud and rock, mountain that endured, or shifting sands or changing tint--like those colours that were fading swift far in the east, one by one darkening and robing themselves in their grave-clouts grey, happing their heads and going to the dark. . . . Change that went on as a hurpling clock, with only benediction to ring at the end--knowledge that the clock would stop some time, that even change might not endure.
She leaned her chin in her hand and rested, the crumbling stone below her, below that the world, without hope or temptation, without hate or love, at last, at long last. Though attaining it she had come a way strewn with thorns and set with pits, like the strayings of a barefoot bairn in the dark--
She'd not failed in her bargain she told herself that night in the house on Windmill Place, been glad for the man with kindness and good heart, given that which he needed and that which he sought, neither shrinking nor fearing. And he'd given her a pat Ay, lass, but you're fine, and thrust her from him, assuaged, content, and slept sound and douce, alien, remote. Her husband, Ake Ogilvie.
She bit her lips till they bled in those hours that followed, seeking not to think, not to know or heed or believe when every cell of her body tingled and moved to a shivering disgust that would not cease--Oh, she was a fool, what had happened to her that wasn't what she'd known, expected to happen? Idiot and gype to shiver so, she'd to sleep, to get up in the morning and get on with her work, get her man's meat ready, his boots fresh-polished, sit by his side and eat in a kitchen, watch his slobberings of drink and his mouthings of food while he took no notice of her, read his paper, laced his boots and went showding out to look for a job, a contented childe. . . . She'd all that waiting for her the morn, all morns: sleep and be still, Oh, sleep and be still!
And at last she lay still with memories and ghosts, Ewan with dark hair and boy's face, Ewan beside her, Ewan from the dust, who'd thought her the wonder of God in the wild, dear daftness of early love, Ewan whom she'd loved so and hated so, Ewan--oh, little need to come now, she'd paid the debt back that he'd given for her when they murdered him that raining morning in France, paid it to the last ounce, body and flesh. And then in the darkness another came, a face above her, blue-eyed, strong-lined, only a moment as that moment's madness between them long syne. Not in longing or lust had they known each other, by chance, just a chance compassion and fear, foolish and aimless as living itself. Oh, Long Rob whose place was never with me, not now can you heed or help me at all. . . .
Quiet and quiet, because not that third, not look at him or remember him. And she buried her face in the pillow not to see, and then turned and waited rigid: Robert.
And she saw him for the first time since he'd died Robert completed, who'd had no face in her memory so long, Robert with eyes and face and chin and the steady light of madness in his eyes. Robert not the lover but the fanatic, Robert turning from her coughing red in sleep in that last winter in Segget, Robert with red lips as he sat in the pulpit--she stared at him dreadfully in the close-packed dark, far under her feet the clocks came chiming while she lay and looked and forgot to shiver.
Not Ake alone, but beyond them all, or they beyond her and tormenting her. And she knew in that minute that never again in memory, or reality might any man make in gladness unquiet a heart passed beyond lust and love alike--past as a child forgetting its toys, weeping over their poor, shattered shapes no longer, and turning dry-eyed to the lessons of Life.
Ewan tramped Duncairn in search of a job--he knew it would be too expensive a job to try and fight on the apprentice's rights which Gowans and Gloag had torn up with his agreement. No chance of winning against them, of course, they could twist any court against a Red. He told that to Chris, cheery and cool; but his coolness was something different now. Cold and controlled he had always been, some lirk in his nature and upbringing that Chris loved, who so hated folk in a fuss. But now that quality she'd likened to grey granite itself, that something she'd seen change in Duncairn from slaty grey to a glow of fire, was transmuting again before her eyes--into something darker and coarser, in essence the same, in tint antrin queer. More like his father he seemed every day, if one could imagine that other Ewan with his angers and hasty resentments mislaid. . . . She told him that and he laughed and teased her: Only I'm a lot better looking! and she said absently he would never be that, there was over-much bone in his face.--And what job are you thinking of trying to get?
He said he'd no idea, any old job, there'd likely not be much opening for a Red: I'm sorry to have upset your plans, you know, mother.
Chris asked what plans? and he asked with a grin hadn't she wanted him to be respectable, genteel, with no silly notions and a nice office suit? Chris didn't laugh, just said she hadn't known she'd mothered a gowk: if he knew as little of the beliefs that had made him a Red as he knew of her--faith, it would be long before he and Mr. Trease ruled in Duncairn.
He sat and listened to that with a smile: Faith, it'll be long anyway, I'm afraid. And as for what you call my beliefs, they're just plain hell--but then--they ARE real. And you ought to like them, you're so much alike!
She asked what he meant, and he said Why, you're both real, and stood up and cuddled her, laughing down at her, Ewan who'd once had no sense of humour, had he found that in torment in a prison cell? Didn't you know you were real, Chris, realer than ever? And stepfather Ake's pretty real as well.
Real? She watched through the days that followed, manner and act, gesture and gley, with a kind, quiet curiosity. Like Ewan he was tramping Duncairn for a job, she'd listen to his feet on the stairs as he went, and the stride never altered, an unhastenmg swing. And at evening they'd sit long hours in the kitchen, Chris sewing, him reading, hardly speaking a word, Chris because she had nothing to say, Ake because he'd no mind for claik. Then he'd drink his cocoa and look at the clock, and say Lass, it's time we went off to bed, and off he'd go, in his socks, no slippers or shoes, she'd follow and find him winding his watch, feet apart, independent, green-eyed, curled mousered, taking a bit glance at the nighttime sky. And even while they undressed he'd say no word, getting cannily into the bed and lying down. Then he'd swing over on his pillow and off to sleep without a good night or a single remark: would a man be as daft as say good night to his own wife?
And Chris as those nights went by, padding at the heels of unchanging days, slept well enough now without fears at all on that matter that had set her shivering at first, she shivered no longer, he came to her rarely, eidently, coolly; and with a kind honesty, unhurtable now, she awaited him, paying her share of the price of things, another function for the woman-body, who did the cooking and attended the house while he still kept up his hunt for a job.
Kisses there were none, or caresses even, except a rare pat as she leaned over to set a plate in front of him. They said bare things one to the other: Ay, it's clearing. . . . Rain in the lift. . . . Eggs up in price. . . . That'll be Ewan. . . .
She was finding ease who had known little.
The Reverend MacShilluck had never heard the like, he'd advertised for a gardening body and the morning the advertisement appeared in the Runner, the first to come in search of the job--now, who do you think the young thug was?
The housekeeper simpered and said she didn't know: could it be the young man was an ill-doer, like?
The Reverend MacShilluck said Not only that, far worse than that, ahhhhhhhhhhhh, far worse. And the housekeeper said Well, God be here. Was the smokie to your taste? for she wanted away back to the kitchen to add up the grocer's account for the week and see how much she could nick on the sly and save up against the day that would come when she'd be able to clear out completely and leave the clorty cuddy forever. . . . But he was fairly in full swing by then and went on to tell that the young man who'd come was no other than that thug Ewan Tavendale who'd led the strikers at Gowans and Gloag's and been sacked for it, he'd been in the jail and yet he had the impertinence to come LOOKING FOR A JOB about a Manse. So the Reverend had refused him, sharp and plain, he'd seen the young brute was a typical Red, born lazy, living off doles and never seeking an honest day's work--
The housekeeper said God be here, like that? Then he couldn't have been seeking the job at all? And the Reverend MacShilluck gave a bit cough and said he would never trust a Red, not him; had he ever told her the tale of the way at the General Assembly he'd once choked off a Socialist, Colquohoun--shame on him, and him a minister, too! . . .
Miss Murgatroyd said Eh me, it was Awful, but had Mrs. Colquohoun--oh, sorry, she meant Mrs. Ogilvie--heard of the Dreadful Occurrence at Gawpus's shop? And Chris said she hadn't and Miss Murgatroyd said she didn't know how to speak, she was sure Mrs Ogilvie would understand her point of view and that she didn't really believe that young Mr. Ewan had behaved like that. And Chris asked what was this about Ewan? and Miss Murgatroyd told her the dreadful story, just as she'd heard from that dear Mrs. Gawpus that afternoon at the Unionist Ladies.
It seemed that Mr. Ewan had got employment in the basement of Bailie Gawpus's shop, and oh me, it was awful to tell the rest. He'd been there only a day or so when the other workmen in the basement started raising a din because there wasn't a proper, you know, W.C. there, and Bailie had thought it would be just pampering keelies, wasn't there the yard outside! The Bailie had gone down to see what was wrong, and then he'd set eyes on Mr. Ewan, so unfortunate, for the Bailie remembered him--he had seen him when he was arrested for taking part in that dreadful strike. Bailie Gawpus hadn't known that Mr. Ewan was one of his employees, a foreman had engaged him--such a nice man, the Bailie, but awful strict, a little stout, she was sure it was in his heart--
Well, he became Such Indignant at seeing Mr. Ewan, and sure that was the cause of the bother, that he ordered him out of the basement at once, he was so against the Communists and the dreadful things they had done to the Common People in Russia. He told Mr. Ewan he was dismissed on the spot. Such a Pity, Bailie Gawpus perhaps not as nice as he might have been--in fact, Mrs. Gawpus admitted that her husband perhaps exceeded his powers, he laid hands on Mr. Ewan to push him out.
And then--it was dreadful, dreadful, a man old enough to be his father--Mr. Ewan seized Bailie Gawpus by the collar of his coat and ran him out to the yard at the back, the Bailie almost dying of rage and heart-failure, and showed him--you know, the place that those awful basement people Used. And asked he how the Bailie would like to use it? And before the Dear Bailie could say anything at all he was down on his hands and knees and his face being Rubbed in It--feuch, wasn't that awful? Worse still, the rest of the dreadful keelies came out from the basement and cheered and laughed and when Bailie Gawpus got up to his feet and threatened to send for a policeman Mr. Ewan said there was no need to do that, he was off to get one himself and report the sanitary conditions of the place. So dreadful for the Bailie. He'd to pay up a week's wages to Mr. Ewan and promise to have a proper W.C. constructed; and the Bailie was just Boiling with Rage. . . .
Almost every night after that week-end in Drumtochty Ellen would slip through her doorway, sly pussy-cat, and trip along to Ewan's room, scratch on the door and be letten in, and taken and kissed and looked at and shaken, because they were mad and the day had seemed--Oh, so horribly long! And Ellen would forget the vexatious Scotch brats whom she tried to drum up the steep cliffs of learning, sour looks and old women and the stench from the drains of the Ecclesgriegs Middle, the sourly hysterical glares of Ena Lyon--everything every time in that blessed minute when inside Ewan's door she was inside his arms, tight, arms hard and yet soft with their dark down fringe, Ewan's face bent down to hers to that breathless moment when she thought she would die if he didn't, in one second--oh, kiss her quick!
And he did, and her arms went up round his neck, fun, thrilly: you'd often wondered what men's necks were for. And the two of you would stand still, so cuddled, not kissing, not moving, just in blessed content to touch, to hear the beating of each other's hearts, each other's breathing, know each other's being, content and lovely, without shelter or shyness one from the other, blessed minute that was hardly equalled in all else, not even the minutes that followed it later.
But first she made tea on Ewan's gas-ring with the kettle and teapot they'd bought together in a Saturday evening scrimmage at Woolies, China tea, Ellen kneeling to make it, having made Ewan sit and be quiet and not fuss, tired out with haunting the streets for a job. And he'd say But I'm not, and she'd say then he ought to be--Sit still and read and don't argue. Ewan would laugh and drag down a book, silence in the room but for the gas-hiss, Ellen drowsy as she watched the bubbling gas-flame and the kettle begin to simmer and stir. House-keeping comfy and fun, alone in a room with Ewan: though the house wasn't theirs, nor the room, nor the furniture, nothing but a sixpenny kettle and teapot and cups and saucers at a penny a piece!
She'd glance up at him, deep in his book, and not heed the book, but only him, nice arms bare and the curve of his head, strange and dear, nice funny nose, lips too thick, like her own, brown throat--she could catalogue them forever, over and over, and know a fresh thrill every word every time--oh, damnable and silly and lovely to be in love!
And they'd drink the tea in a drowse of content and talk of his books and the men of old time, the Simple Men who had roamed the earth before Civilization came. If even men attained that elementary simplicity again--
And Ellen would rouse: But then, what's the use? If we don't believe in that we're just--oh daft, as you Scotch people say, wasting our lives instead of--And Ewan would ask Instead of what?--Saving up to get married? and laugh and hold her face firm between his hands, young rough hands, the look in his eyes that made her responses falter even while at his laugh and the thing he laughed at something denying struggled up in her, almost shaped itself to words on her lips. Sometime, surely--Oh, sometime they'd get married when the Revolution came and all was put right.
And sometimes she'd feel just sick and desolate the way he would talk of that coming change, he didn't expect it would come in their time, capitalism had a hundred dodges yet to dodge its own end, Fascism, New Deals, Douglasism, War: Fascism would probably outlast the lot. Ellen said that she didn't believe that a minute else what was the good of all their struggles, what was the good of dissolving the League and both of them joining the Communist Party? And Ewan would smile at her: No good at all. Child's play, Ellen, or so it'll seem for years. And we've just to go on with it, right to the end, History our master not the servant we supposed. . . .
He'd fall to his books again, dryest stuff, economics she never could stick, she would reach up and catch the book from him and his eyes meet hers, blank a while, cold, blank and grey, horrible eyes like a cuttle-fish's--like the glint on the houses in Royal Mile, the glint of grey granite she thought once, and shivered. And he asked her why and she said she was silly and he said he knew that, eyes warm again, and they fooled about, struggling a little in the fading June night: and then were quiet, her head on his knee, looking out of the window at summer-stilled Duncairn, little winds tapping the cord of the blind, far off in the fall of the darkness the winking eye of Crowie Point lighting up the green surge of the North Sea night. And Ellen would say Oh, aren't we comfy? Fun, this, he'd say nothing, just cuddle her, staring out at that light wan and lost that bestrode the sky.
In bed, beside him, breathing to sleep, the little sleep after those moments that she still thought fun, she would tickle his throat with her hair, feel sure and confident as never in the light, here in the dark he was hers unquestioned, hers and no other's, breathing so, sweat on his brow, hair curling about her fingers from the dark, sleek head. He would stroke her with a swift, soft hand, like a bird's light wing, into that little sleep till somewhere between two and three she would wake, he wakeful as well, and they'd kiss again, cool and neat, and slip out of bed, slim children both, and stand hand in hand and listen, all the house in Windmill Place silent. Then they'd pad to the door and lug it open and peer out, nothing, the lobby dark below, no glimmer about but faint on the landing the far ghost radiance of Footforthie. Ewan would open her door for her, sleepily they'd hug, and yawn at each other in the dark, giggle a bit because of that, and Ellen close the door and slip into her bed, asleep before she had reached it, almost.
But one morning she saw his hands cut and bruised and asked why, and he said oh that was from his new job, up at Stoddart's, the granite-mason's, he'd been taken on there as a labourer.
The table looked at him, the first any had heard: Chris asked if he liked it, were the other folk nice?
Miss Murgatroyd simpered she was awful glad he had found Respectable Employment, like. Such Pity not to be in the office though; they were awful respectable folk, the Stoddarts.
Mr. Piddle said he-he! and ate like a gull landed famished on the corpse of a whale.
Mr. Quaritch cocked his wee beard to the side: You'll be able to study the proletariat at first hand now. Tell me when you get sick of them, lad. I might be able to find something better.
Ena Lyon sniffed and said she Just Hated gravestones.
Ellen sat and stared in blank, dead silence, feeling sick and forgotten while they all talked. Oh goodness, hadn't they heard, had they all gone deaf? Ewan--EWAN A LABOURER!
July came in slow heat over Duncairn, and with it the summer-time visitors. John Cushnie took his feeungsay down to the Beach every night that his mecks would meet, in to hear Gappy Gowkheid braying his jokes in the Beach Pavilion, awfully funny, God, how you laughed when he spoke the daft Scotch and your quean beside you giggled superior and said Say he was sure the canary's camiknicks, she was awful clever and spoke a lot like that that she'd heard at the Talkies--though if you had mentioned her camiknicks she'd have flamed insulted right on the spot.
Or you'd take her down of a Wednesday afternoon, when Raggie's had closed, birring on the tramcars loaded for the Beach, wheeling out from Footforthie, there glimmering and pitching and REELING in the sun the Amusements Park with its scenic railway, Beach crowded with folk the same as the cars, you and your quean would sit and listen to the silly English that couldn't speak proper, with their 'eads and 'ands and 'alfs and such. Then off you'd get and trail into the Amusements Park, you'd only a half-dollar but you wouldn't let on, your feeungsay was so superior and you only the clerk in Raggie Robertson's. She was fairly gentry and said how she'd enjoyed her holiday away with her Girl Friend, they'd gone for a week out in the country, and the farmers were awful vulgar and funny. And you said, Yes, you knew, hicks were like that, and she said You've spilt it--with their awful Scotch words: Tyesdat for Tuesday, and Foersday for Friday, and no proper drainage at all, you know. And you said again that you knew; she meant there weren't real W.C.s but rather would have died than say so right out.
So you asked if she'd like the scenic railway, and she said It's okay be me, on you got, she screamed and grabbed you and the hair got out from under her hat, you were awful proud of her but wished to hell she wouldn't scream as though her throat were chokeful up of old razor blades, and clutched at her skirt, and skirl Oh, stop! God, hadn't she legs like other folk and need she aye be ashamed of them? So you gave her a bit grab about the legs and she screamed some more and hung on to you: but when the ride finished she was real offended and said she wasn't that kind of girl, Don't try and come it fresh on me.
You said you were sorry, so you were and were just trying to make it up with her when she saw her friend and cried Cooee, Ena! and the quean came over, all powder and poshness, and who should it be but Miss Ena Lyon that you'd known at the lodgings in Windmill Place. She said she was just having a stroll about, and no, she hadn't a boy with her. And your quean giggled, and Miss Lyon giggled and you felt a fool, queans were like that; and as you followed them into the tea-tent you wished a coarse minute they'd stop their damned showing-off and be decent to a chap that was treating them--wished a daft minute you'd a quean who didn't care about Talkies and genteelness or was scared at her legs being touched or her feelings offended--one that would cuddle you because she liked it, liked you, thought her legs and all of herself for you, and was douce and sweet and vulgar and kind--like a keelie out of the Cowgate. . . . God, it must be the sun had got at you!
Your quean and Miss Lyon were at it hell for leather talking about their holidays and where they had bade, and how much they paid for digs in Duncairn. And Miss Lyon said she thought she'd move hers, the landlady had once been a minister's widow but now she had married an Awful Common person, a joskin just, that lorded it about the place and wasn't a bit respectful at all. Worse than that, though, the landlady's son was a Red. . . . You said that you'd known that, that's why you'd left, Raggie Robertson was dead against the Reds. . . . And your quean saidDon't be silly. Go on, Ena.
And Miss Lyon said that another of the lodgers was a schoolteacher, Red as well, and she was sure there were Awful Things between them. She'd heard--and she giggled and whispered to your quean and you felt yourself turn red round the ears, what were the daft bitches gigg-giggling about? And your quean made on she was awful shocked and said she wouldn't stay there a minute, the place was no better than a WICKED HOUSE, just.
Miss Lyon said that she'd got no proof, of course, and your quean mustn't say anything, and your quean said she wouldn't but that Ena could easily get proof and show up the two Reds and then leave the place. And then you all talked together about the Communists, coarse beasts, aye stirring up the working class--that was the worst of the working class that they could be led astray by agitators, they'd no sense and needed to be strongly ruled.
You told the queans that but they didn't listen, they were giggling horrified to each other again, your quean said What, did you really hear the bed creak? and Miss Lyon said Yes, twice, and their faces were all red and warmed up and glinting, they minded you suddenly of the faces of two bitches sniffling round a lamp-post, scared and eager and hot on a scent. . . . But you mustn't think that, they were real genteel.
For your quean was the daughter of a bank clerk in Aberdeen and Miss Ena Lyon's father had been a postmaster, some class, you guessed, you didn't much like to tell them yours had only been the hostler at the Grand Hotel, what did it matter, you were middle-class yourself now and didn't want ever to remember that you might have been a keelie labourer--God, living in some awful room in Paldy, working at the Docks or the granite yards, going round with some quean not genteel like yours but speaking just awful, Scotch, no restraint or knowing how to take care of herself, maybe coming into your bed at night, smooth and fine and kissing you, cuddling you, holding you without screaming, just in liking and kindness. . . . Your quean asked Whatever's come over you, red like that? and you said Oh, nothing, it's stuffy in here.
And home you all went on the evening tram, your quean and Miss Lyon sitting together and your quean telling Miss Lyon what fine digs she had, the landlady so respectful, a perfect old scream: and Ena should wait about to-night and catch the two Reds and show them up, and leave the place and come bide with your quean.
And Miss Lyon said that she would, too, she was sick of the place, anyhow--the dirty beasts to act like that, night after night. . . . And they giggled and whispered some more and for some funny reason you felt as though you'd a stone in your gall, sick and weary, what was the use?--what was the use of being middle-class and wearing a collar and going to the Talkies when this was all that you got out of it? And your quean, whispering some direction to Miss Lyon, turned round and said Don't listen a minute, and you nearly socked her one in the jaw--och, 'twas the summer night's heat that was getting you.
Chris's roses were full and red in bloom, scentless and lovely, glowing alive in the Sunday sun as she herself came out to the little back garden. Ewan and Ellen were out there already, their backs to the house, one kneeling one standing, their dark hair blue in the sunlight, young, with a murmur of talk and laughter between them. And she saw indeed they were children no longer, Ellen a woman, slim, a slip of a thing, but that pussy-cat dewiness lost and quite gone, Ewan with the stance and look and act of some strange species of Gallowgate keelie who had never hidden or starved in a slum and planned to cut all the gentry's throat, politely, for the good of humankind. . . . And Miss Ena Lyon was no doubt right in all she had said: Chris must tell them somehow.
But standing looking at them she knew that she couldn't, not because she was ashamed to speak of such things to either but because they were over-young and happy to have their minds vexed with the dirty sad angers of Miss Ena Lyon, poor lass. She'd never had a soul slip into herroom of a night, maybe that was the reason for her awful stamash about Ellen and Ewan exchanging visits. . . . She'd bade up last night, she had told to Chris, and waited on the stairs to confirm her suspicions. And sure enough it had happened again, oh, Disgusting, at Eleven o'clock Miss Johns slipping into Mr. Tavendale's room. And she couldn't stay on any longer in a place like this, it was no better than a Brothel, just.
Chris had looked at her in a quiet compassion and said there was no need to stay even a week, she'd better pack and get out at once. Miss Lyon had stared and flushed up raddled red: What, me that's done nothing? You've more need to shift those--
She'd called them a dirty name, Chris had said without anger You'll pack and be gone in an hour, and left her to that and gone down to the kitchen and shortly afterwards heard a tramping overhead as Miss Lyon got her bit things together--thrown out of her lodgings for trying to keep keelies respectable.
Working in the kitchen with Jock the cat stropping himself up against her legs, Chris had thought that funny for a moment, then it wasn't, she'd have to ask the two what they meant to do. And she thought how awful it was the rate that things tore on from a body's vision, only a year or so since she'd thought of Ewan as a little student lad, her own, jealous when he talked to the pussy-cat: and now she'd have to ask him when he meant to marry!
So she'd made the oatcakes and scones all the lodgers cried for, Ake had come swinging in from outbye, out to buy his bit Sunday paper, no collar, his boots well-blacked, his mouser well-curled, he'd sat down and eaten a cake while he read. Chris had brought him some milk though he'd said he'd get it for himself, he'd taken to saying that kind of thing, queer, though she'd paid it little attention, looking at him quiet and friendly, just, this business of getting a job was a trauchle. She'd asked was there any sign of work and he'd said not a bit in the whole of Duncairn, and folded back his paper and looked up at her with green-glinting eyes as he drank his milk. A job? The Devil the one. And I'm thinking I know the reason for that.
Chris asked What reason? and he'd said Jimmy Speight, no doubt he'd sent a message all round Duncairn to the joiners and timber-merchants and such warning them against employing Ake. Chris said that surely he'd be feared to do that seeing that Ake knew the scandal about him, Ake had shaken his head, Ay, but he'd promised never to use that knowledge again and Jimmy knew that he'd keep the promise, a body must keep a promise made even to a daft old skate like the Provost.
And then he'd said something that halted Chris: I'm sorry, mistress, that I drove you to marrying me.
Chris had said Why, Ake! in surprise, and he'd nodded: Ay, a damn mistake. Queer the daft desires that drive folk. I might well have known you'd never mate with me, you'd been spoiled in the beds of ministers and the like. I'd forgotten that like an unblooded loon.
Chris had stood and listened in a kind surprise, beyond fear of being startled or hurt any more by any man of the sons of men who brought their desires their gifts to her. She'd said she'd done all she could to make them happy, and Ake had nodded, Ay, all that she could, but that wasn't enough, och, she wasn't to blame. Then he'd said not to fash, things would ravel out in time, he was off for a dander round the Docks.
So he'd gone, leaving Chris to finish the cooking and set the dinner and watch the taxi drive up and take away Miss Lyon's luggage, a pile of it, and hear the cabman ask if she shouldn't have hired a lorry instead? And Miss Lyon had said she wanted none of his impudence, she'd had enough of that already, living in a brothel. Chris had started a little, overhearing that, but the cabman just said Faith now, have you so? Trade failing that you're leaving? and got in and drove off.
And now, the pastry browning fine and Jock the cat purring away, Chris had come out to the noon-time yard to ask Ellen and Ewan what they meant to do over this business of sleeping together without the kirk's licence and shocking Miss Lyon.
But the picture they made took the plan from her mind, she saw now what it was they were laughing about, they'd gotten in the baby from over next door, the bald-headed father had been left in charge and had wanted to mow his lawn awful bad and the bairn had wakened up in its pram and started a yowl, frustrating the man: till Ellen looked over and said Shall I? And he'd handed it over, all red and thankful, and now Ellen squatted by the rose-bush, the bairn in her lap and was wagging a bloom in front of its nose. And the bairn near as big and bald as his father, was kicking his legs, gurgling, and burying his nose and mouth in the rose, sniffing, and then kicking some more in delight. And Chris saw Ewan looking down at the two with a look on his face that made her stop.
Not the kind of look at all a young man should have given his quean with a stranger's bairn--a drowsy content and expectation commingled. Instead, Ewan looked at the two cool and frank, amused and a little bored, as he might at a friend who played with a kitten. . . .
And Chris thought, appalled, Poor Ellen, poor Ellen!
Gowans and Gloag's had quietened down after the strike, the chaps went back and said to themselves no more listening to those Communist Bulgars that got you in trouble because of their daftness, damn't, if the Chinks and the Japs wanted to poison one the other, why shouldn't they?--they were coarse little brutes, anyhow, like that Dr. Fu Manchu on the films. And wee Geordie Bruce that Worked in Machines said there was nothing like a schlorich of blood to give a chap a bit twist in the wame. But you, though you weren't a Red any longer, said to Geordie that he'd done damn little blood-letting against the bobbies; and Norman Cruickshank took Wee Geordie's nose and gave it a twist, it nearly came off, and said Hey, sample a drop of your own. God, and to think it's red, not yellow!
You took a bit taik into Machines now and then for a gabble with Norman on this thing and that, the new wing they'd built, called Chemicals, where the business of loading the cylinders with gas was to start in another week or so. Already a birn of chaps had come from the south with a special training for that kind of work, Glasgow devils and an Irishman or so. You and Norman would sneak out to the W.C. for a fag, and you'd ask if Norman had seen anything of Ewan? And Norman would say he'd seen him once or twice at meetings of the Reds down on the Beach, he'd fairly joined up with the Communists now and spoke at their meetings--daft young Bulgar if ever there was one, and him gey clever and educated, Bob.
You said rough enough that you knew all that, and Norman looked at you queer and said Oh of course, you yourself had been a bit of a Red a while back and belonged to that League that Tavendale had raised. Why had you scuttled? Got the wind up?
You took him a smack in the face for that, he was at you in a minute, you couldn't stand up to him, the foreman came running in and pulled you apart: Hey, what the hell do you think this is? Boxing gymnasium? Back to your work, you whoreson gets. And back you both went, b'God you'd given the mucker something to think of, saying that you had the wind up--you!
It was just that you'd seen the Reds were daft, a chap that joined them never got a job, got bashed by bobbies and was sent to the camps, never had a meck to spend of a night or a shirt that didn't stick to his back. Och to hell! You wanted a life of your own, you'd met a quean that was braw and kind, she and you were saving up to get married, maybe at New Year and maybe a bit sooner, you'd your eyes on two rooms in Kirrieben, the quean was a two months gone already but you'd be in time if your plans came off; and you weren't sorry a bit, you'd told her, kissing her, she'd blushed and pushed you away, awful shy Jess except in the dark. So who'd time at all for this Red stite and blether that never would help a chap anyway, what was the use of getting your head bashed in for something worse than religion?
But that evening you and some of the chaps had a bit of overtime in the works, clearing up the mess of some university loons allowed down to potter about in Castings. You finished gey late and as you came out there was some kind of meeting on at the gates, a young chap up on a kind of platform speaking low and clear, who could he be? And you and the rest took a dander along, a fair crowd around, Broo men and fishers, stinking like dung, and a dozen or so of the toff students that had messed about that evening in Castings. The toffs were laughing and crying out jokes, but the young chap wasn't heeding them a bit, he was dressed in old dungarees, all whitened, a chap from the granite-works, no doubt, with big thick boots and red rough hands. And only as you got fell close did you see that the speaker was young Ewan Tavendale himself.
He was saying if the workers would only unite--when one of the university toffs made a raspberry and called Unite to give you a soft living, you mean? Ewan said Quite, and you a hard death, we'll abolish lice in the Communist state, and then went on with his speech, quick and cool, the students started making a rumpus and some of the fishers gave a bit laugh and started to taik away home at that, quiet old chaps that didn't fancy a row. But Norman Cruickshank called out to Ewan to carry on with his say, would he? they'd see to the mammies' pets with the nice clean collars and the fat office dowps. And Norman called to the Gowans' chaps: Who'll keep order?
Most of the others cried up that they would, you didn't yourself but taiked away home, you'd your quean to meet and were going that night to look at a bit of second-hand furniture in a little shop in the Gallowgate. Only as you turned the bend of the street you looked back and saw a fair scrimmage on, the whey-faced bastards down from the colleges were taking on the Gowans chaps, you nearly turned and ran back to join--och, you couldn't, not now, mighty, what about Jess? And you started to run like a fool, as though feared--feared at something that wasn't yourself, that leapt in your heart when you looked at Ewan.
Jim Trease said that was one way of holding a meeting, not the best, you should never let a free fight start at your meetings unless it was well in the heart of a town, with plenty of police about and folk in hundreds and a chance of a snappy arrest or so, to serve the Party as good publicity.
Ewan said Yes, he knew, but he'd taken the opportunity to stir up antagonism between the Gowans chaps and students. Deepening the dislike between the classes. Obvious enough that the day of the revolutionary student was done, he turned to Fascism or Nationalism now, the fight for the future was the workers against all the world. Trease nodded, a bit of heresy there, but true enough in the main. Anyhow, there was no great harm done, Ewan had barked his knuckles a bit, he'd better come up to the Trease house in Paldy and get them iodined. And maybe he'd like a cup of tea.
Ewan said he would and folded up his platform, the fight was over and the students had gone, chased up the wynds by the Gowans men. But Norman Cruickshank came panting back: All right, Ewan? and Ewan said Fine. Thanks to you, Norman. When'll I see you?
--I don't know, but to hell--sometime. Never heard anybody speak about things as you used to do in the Furnaces. And he asked what Ewan was doing now and Ewan told him he was a labourer at Stoddart's, and Norman said God, what a job for a toff, and Ewan said he wasn't a toff, just a worker, and Norman said tell that to his grandmother: only, where would they meet again? So they fixed that up, Trease standing by, big and sonsy, with a twinkle in his little eyes and his shabby suit shining in the evening light.
Mrs. Trease held out a soft hand and said Howdedo? . . . Jim, I'm away out to the Pictures. See and not start the Revolution without me, there's two kippers in the press if you'd like some meat, the police have been here this afternoon and the landlord's going to give us the push. That's all. Ta-ta. Trease gave her a squeeze and said that was fine, so long as nothing serious had happened; and told her to see and enjoy the picture, who was the actress? Greena Garbage? Well, that was fine; and gave Mrs. Trease a clap on the bottom, out she went, Ewan standing and watching. And Trease came back and smiled at Ewan, big, creased: Ay. Think her a funny bitch?
Ewan said No, she seemed all right, was she a Communist as well? Trease gave his head a scratch, he'd never asked her, he'd aye been over-busy, her as well, moving from this place and that, chivvied by the bobbies, her ostracized by the neighbours and the like, never complaining though, canty and cheery--they'd had no weans and that was a blessing.
Ewan nodded and said he saw that, there wasn't much time for the usual family business when you were a revolutionist. And Big Jim twinkled his eyes and said No, for that you'd to go in for Socialism and Reform, like Bailie Brown, and be awful indignant about the conditions of those gentlemanly coves, the suffering workers. And Ewan grinned at him, he at Ewan, neither had a single illusion about the workers: they weren't heroes or gods oppressed, or likely to be generous and reasonable when their great black wave came flooding at last, up and up, swamping the high places with mud and blood. Most likely such leaders of the workers as themselves would be flung aside or trampled under, it didn't matter, nothing to them, THEY THEMSELVES WERE THE WORKERS and they'd no more protest than a man's fingers complain of a foolish muscle.
And Trease made the tea and they cooked the kippers and had a long chat on this and that, not the revolution, strikes or agitprop, but about skies and stars and Ewan's archæology that he'd loved when he was a kid long ago, Trease knew little or ought about it though he'd heard of primitive communism. He said he misdoubted they'd ever see workers' revolution in their time, capitalism had taken crises before and would take them again, it was well enough organized in Great Britain to carry ten million unemployed let alone the two and a half of to-day, Fascism would stabilize and wars help, they were coming, the wars, but coming slow.
Ewan said he thought the same, for years it was likely the workers' movements would be driven underground, they'd to take advantage of legality as long as they could and then prepare for underground work--perhaps a generation of secret agitation and occasional terrorism. And Trease nodded, and they left all that to heed to itself and Trease sat twinkling, his collar off, and told Ewan of his life as a propagandist far and wide over Scotland and England, agitprop in Glasgow, Lanark, Dundee, the funny occurrences that now seemed funny, they'd seemed dead serious when he was young. He'd tramped to lone villages and stood to speak and been chased from such places by gangs of ploughmen--once taken and stripped and half-drowned in a trough; he'd been jailed again and again for this and that petty crime he'd never committed, and in time took the lot as just the day's work; he'd been out with Connoly at Easter in Dublin, an awfully mismanaged Rising that.
But the things he minded best were the silly, small things--nights in mining touns when he'd finished an address to a local branch and the branch secretary would hie him away home to his house: and Trease find the house a single room, with a canty dame, the miner's wife, cooking them a supper and bidding them welcome: and they'd sit and eat and Trease all the time have a bit of a worry on his mind--where the hell was he going to sleep? and the miner would say Well, look this way, comrade, and Trease would hear a bit creak at the back of the room--the miner's wife getting into bed: and he and the miner would sit and claik the moon into morning and both give a yawn and the miner would say Time for the bed. I'll lie in the middle and you in the front; and in they'd get and soon be asleep, nothing queer and antrin in it at all, not even when the miner got up and out at the chap of six and left you lying there with his mate, you'd as soon have thought of touching your sister.
And Ewan laughed and then grew serious and spoke of his work in the Stoddart yard, he was raising up something of a cell in the yard, could Jim dig out a bundle of pamphlets for him? They'd all been Labour when he went to Stoddart's, but already he'd another four in the cell. Trease said he'd give him pamphlets enough, Stoddart's was a place worth bothering about, how long did Ewan think he would last before he was fired by the management? Ewan said he thought a couple of months, you never could tell, damned nuisance, he was getting interested in granite. And that led him on to metallurgy, on and on, and Trease sat and listened and poured himself a fresh cup of tea now and then . . . till Ewan pulled himself up with a laugh: Must clear out now, I've been blithering for hours.
But Mrs. Trease came back from the Talkies and wouldn't hear of it, Jim would need a bit crack and a bit more supper, she thought there was some cheese. Greena Garbage had been right fine, cuddled to death and wedded and bedded. Would Ewan stir up the fire a little and Jim move his meikle shins out of the way? Ta-ra-ra, 'way down in Omaha--
Trease twinkled at Ewan: That's what you get. Not revolutionary songs, but Ta-ra-ra, 'way down in Omaha. Mrs. Trease said Fegs, revolutionary songs gave her a pain in the stomach, they were nearly as dreich as hymns--the only difference being that they promised you hell on earth instead of in hell.
And Ewan sat and looked on and spoke now and then, and liked them well enough, knowing that if it suited the Party purpose Trease would betray him to the police to-morrow, use anything and everything that might happen to him as propaganda and publicity, without caring a fig for liking or aught else. So he'd deal with Mrs. Trease, if it came to that. . . . And Ewan nodded to that, to Trease, to himself, commonsense, no other way to hack out the road ahead. Neither friends nor scruples nor honour nor hope for the folk who took the workers' road; just life that sent tiredness leaping from the brain; that sent death and wealth and ease and comfort shivering away with a dirty smell, a residuum of slag that time scraped out through the bars of the whooming furnace of History--
And then he went out and home through the streets swinging along and whistling soft, though he hardly knew that till he heard his own wheeber going along the pavement in front, the August night mellow and warm and kind, Duncairn asleep but for a great pelt of lorries going up from the Fishmarket, the cry of a wakeful baby somewhere. And he smiled a little as he heard that cry, remembering Ellen and her saying that Communism would bring a time when there would be no more weeping, neither any tears. . . . She was no more than a baby herself.
A bobby stopped in a doorway and watched him go by: there was something in that whistle that was bloody eerie, a daft young skate, but he fair could whistle.
It was plain to Chris something drastic must be done to reorganize the house in Windmill Place. With Cushnie first gone and syne Ena Lyon and Ake still seeking about for a job she'd have to get new lodgers one way or the other. But the price Ma Cleghorn had set on the house had made it for folk of the middle-class, except such rare intruders as Ake--and he'd come in search of her, she supposed, much he'd got from the coming, poor wight.
She asked Neil Quaritch when he came to tea, he looked thinner and stringier and tougher than ever, a wee cocky man with a wee cocky beard, pity his nose was as violent as that. Lodgings?--he'd ask some of the men in the Runner. Especially as they might never see Mr. Piddle again.
Chris said Why? and Neil licked his lips and thought Boadicea probably looked like that. She'd strip well--and damn it, she does--for Ogilvie. Then he pushed his cup over for replenishing, they were sitting at tea alone, and told the tale about Mr. Piddle that had come up to the office as he left. Mrs. Ogilvie knew this side-line of Piddle's?--sending fishing news to the Tory Pictman?Well, he'd been gey late in gathering it to-day, doing another side-line down in Paldy, prevailing on a servant lassie there to steal him the photo of an old woman body who had hanged herself, being weary with age. Back at last he'd come to the office, he-he!Runner