Clydesiders at War Read online

He’d even begun to think nostalgically about Wincey. He wished he could see her again and talk to her. There had been a lot of bad feeling between them, but before he’d left, that had evaporated. They had their grief at losing Charlotte in common and for once Wincey had been sympathetic to him. And Wincey had loved Charlotte like a sister.

  To everyone else they were sisters. Wincey was just Wincey Gourlay—one of the Gourlay girls. Charlotte had confided in him, however, that in fact there was a mystery surrounding Wincey. Years before, they had found her in the street and taken her in and she’d become one of the family. He wondered who she really was. Even Charlotte hadn’t known. As soon as he got back to Glasgow, he’d make a point of finding out.

  Oh, it would be so good to see them all again. The thought kept him going through the weeks and months of the Phoney War. But it wasn’t long before everything changed for Malcy, and pleasant thoughts of the Gourlay girls and the dear green place were the last thing on his mind.

  8

  ‘But you’re needed here,’ Wincey protested to Robert Houston. ‘What about all your patients in Springburn?’

  Houston’s eyes narrowed and hardened with impatience. ‘They’ll still have Doctor McLeod. It’s my duty to do something for the war effort, Wincey. After all, you’re doing your bit by keeping our forces supplied with uniforms.’

  ‘But you might be sent overseas.’

  Houston shrugged. ‘I might be at some point, I suppose.’

  She could hardly believe the coolness of him. Had he never loved her after all?

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever given me a thought,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Now don’t be like that, Wincey.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘All twisted and bitter. I thought you were beginning to come to terms with that.’

  ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of being bitter and twisted. How am I supposed to feel? I thought we cared about one another. Yet you suddenly announce, cool as a cucumber and without any previous discussion, that you’ve joined the Navy.’

  ‘When do you take enough time to discuss anything, Wincey? You’re a workaholic. I see less and less of you these days, especially since you’ve been spending every weekend over at Kirklee Terrace.’

  ‘You’ve been there too—for lunch, every Sunday.’

  ‘I hardly get to speak to you, Wincey. They do all the talking. The three of you talk together. I don’t blame them, or you. They’ve a lot to catch up with. So have you.’

  ‘We usually manage to go for a walk together.’

  ‘Yes, for a few minutes in the Botanic Gardens, with your parents waving and eagerly watching our every move from their side windows.’

  ‘Well, Robert, it was you who started all this,’ she reminded him. ‘I was perfectly all right before—just being a Gourlay girl.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  She shrugged. ‘I thought I was. Now I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘I’ll probably still be able to see you most weekends. I’ve been posted to the hospital at Port Edgar. That’s at South Queensferry. I’ll let you know when I can get off duty.’

  They were having a drink in the bar of a small country hotel near the Campsie hills. They’d been here before—on their very first date, in fact. The hotel was an old coaching house and the restaurant and bar had once been the stables. It still had the original flagstones under foot, whitewashed stone walls and dark oak beams. It had been a beautiful spring day but now in the evening, it had turned cold. Icy winds were whipping the trees outside, but inside there was a huge log fire crackling cheerily in the ancient hearth. It was cosy where they were sitting. It was only when the door opened and someone came in that an icy blast flurried about their ankles, chilling them for a second or two.

  ‘It’s not just at weekends,’ she said. ‘We see each other during the week—like now.’

  ‘Only occasionally, when you’re not working late at some urgent order, or when I haven’t got an evening surgery.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me, Robert?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want to see me again?’

  ‘Wincey, for goodness sake.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘Of course I want to see you again, darling. I love you. I’m just telling you that I feel my duty lies as a medical officer in the Navy at the moment. They’re crying out for doctors. There’s a war on, remember, and it’s not a phoney war any more. Fighting has started in earnest.’

  She tried to be reasonable. After all, he’d always been a man who’d been in charge of himself and didn’t give way to any display of strong emotion. He wouldn’t have been as good and as reassuring as a doctor if he’d been any other way.

  ‘How about …’ he said quietly and still holding her hand, ‘if we book in here for the night and I show you how much I love you.’

  She was about to say that she couldn’t possibly do that because she had a thousand and one urgent things to attend to at the factory first thing in the morning. She had planned to go into work an hour early.

  Just in time she controlled her tongue. She smiled and nodded her agreement. They’d never made love before. He knew how she shrank with distaste at any thought of sex. Not because of him. It was something inside herself. He knew it and she knew it. It didn’t matter how often he explained that she was not to blame for what her grandfather had done to her. She ought not to feel guilty or dirty. But she did.

  As an adult, she knew perfectly well that she was being illogical and unfair to Robert Houston. She admitted to him that she knew he was right. What she did not admit to him was that deep inside her, she remained that frightened, sickened, guilty child.

  Tonight, however, she was determined to ignore her foolish, infantile emotions. Robert was going away and this was her chance—maybe her last chance—to show him not only that she loved him, but that she trusted him and because of that, she could express her love in the most intimate, physical way.

  Upstairs in the low ceilinged bedroom, however, she began to feel claustrophobic. Panic skittered about in her stomach. Determinedly she fought to quell it.

  ‘Darling,’ Robert sighed, ‘you look as if you’re about to face your execution. I thought that maybe tonight … But I see I was wrong.’ His face drained of expression. Suddenly he was the polite doctor that his patients saw sitting behind a desk in his surgery.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to force myself on you. So just relax. We’ll have another drink and then I’ll take you home.’

  ‘No, Robert, I’ll be all right. I’ll have to get over this. I must.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not this way. Not when you’re so tense and anguished. It’s as bad—if not worse—than it would be for me to force you. Come on,’ he said brusquely, ‘get your coat on. I’m taking you home right now.’

  She could have wept. Instead she sat beside him in the car, silent and white faced. She felt suicidal. She hated herself. She despaired of herself. What a fool she was, what an idiot. No sane woman could treat the man she loved like this. The awful thing was she wanted him, she wanted to belong to him, she desperately wanted to. The car stopped outside the close in Balgrayhill and she managed to say, ‘Oh Robert, I’m so sorry.’

  He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, I understand. I’m sorry for rushing you tonight. Originally I’d planned to give you much more time to get over this—for both of us to work through the problem—but because I’m leaving, I’m afraid I allowed my feelings to get the better of me.’

  ‘Robert, I love you. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He dropped a gentle kiss on her lips. ‘And I love you, Wincey. Don’t worry, darling.’ He grinned at her. ‘I’ll cure you if it’s the last thing I do. I wouldn’t be worth my salt as a doctor if I don’t.’

  She clung round his neck. ‘You’ll write to me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You look after yourself now. Don’t be
working too hard and getting even more anxious than you are at the moment.’

  ‘It’s just … I never dreamt the factory would be so successful. We can hardly keep up with all the huge orders. I’m trying to buy up some adjoining property …’

  ‘Never mind all that now. Just let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  They kissed again and he opened the car door. ‘On you go before my feelings get the better of me again.’

  Her smile hid a secret twitch of fear, followed by relief once she was safely out of the car.

  Later she lay in the blackness of the recessed bed listening to the occasional bout of coughing from Teresa through in the kitchen. She felt deeply worried and depressed. She wondered if she ought to see a psychiatrist. It was so illogical to keep the man she loved at arm’s length the way she did. Of all men, he was the one she should be able to trust and feel at ease with. He was a highly thought of and respectable doctor. She’d even known his father, who had been equally loved and respected by the people of Springburn. If she couldn’t trust Robert Houston, she’d never be able to trust anyone. But it had really nothing to do with him, she reminded herself. Something had gone wrong deep inside her. Maybe only a psychiatrist could root it out, heal the sickness in her mind.

  In an effort to make up for the night before, she took time off work, despite the urgency of the workload, and she went to see Robert off at the railway station. His face lit up with surprise and pleasure when he saw her.

  ‘Darling, I never expected …’

  ‘I know, but believe it or not, Robert, you’re more important to me than my work. How handsome you look in your uniform. You know what they say—all the nice girls love a sailor. I’m jealous already of all the nice girls who’ll fall for you.’

  She’d bought some newspapers and magazines for him to read on the train.

  ‘Here, just concentrate on these for a start.’

  He laughed as he accepted the reading material. ‘I promise I’ll not look at any other woman. Well, maybe a nurse or two …’

  She gave him a playful punch on the arm. ‘Don’t you dare!’

  The guard was blowing his whistle and Robert had to board the train. Wincey blew him a kiss and he waved to her as the train steamed away. It disappeared from view, leaving her drained and empty. If she’d never felt lonely before, she felt it now. She forced herself to walk from the station and into her car. Work was what she needed now. She mustn’t give herself time to think about anything else.

  She had a meeting with a government official in the afternoon and she was wearing a chic spring dress and jacket in soft green boucle wool with a cinnamon coloured belt for the occasion. A brimmed cinnamon coloured hat pulled down over her brow topped the outfit, and she wore good brown leather gloves, especially fitted by Florence in Copeland & Lye. It was there she’d also purchased her matching and very expensive leather handbag. She could see the government official was impressed by her and the hard working girls in the factory, all beavering away at line after line of sewing machines.

  He did however express some doubt at her capacity to take on another, bigger order. She assured him that she was extending her premises and installing more modern machinery. He had no need to worry about her capabilities to deal with any size of order, she assured him. Her self confidence was infectious. She had no problem in business—never had.

  There had been the problem of Malcy McArthur, but there was nothing she could do about that. Big Malcy, as he was known, had been Charlotte’s responsibility. Poor Charlotte. It had been understandable how she’d adored Malcy, despite his obvious weaknesses. He was an attractive devil, with his laughing eyes and his swaggering, muscly body. She wondered how he was getting on in the army. Erchie said Malcy would be in the thick of the fighting now.

  ‘Poor auld Malcy,’ Erchie had said. ‘He hasnae had much luck in his life, wi’ one thing an’ another. Now he’ll be lucky if he gets out o’ this lot in one piece.’

  Teresa sighed. ‘Such a nice big man. He was always good and kind to Charlotte. She always said so. I hope he’ll be all right.’

  ‘Aye, but ye can never trust a gambler,’ Granny said.

  ‘Now, now, Granny. He’s given up gambling. It was a wee weakness he had for a time. None of us are perfect.’ She turned to Wincey. ‘I know you never liked him, dear, but I always had a soft spot for him. He wasn’t a bad man.’

  Wincey shrugged. ‘I got over that in the end. I could see he really did love Charlotte. I don’t feel any dislike for him now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad, dear. We can all welcome him back when the time comes, God willing.’

  9

  ‘Believe you me,’ Mrs McGregor said with grim satisfaction, ‘ah gave her what for.’

  Mrs McGregor was one of the Gourlays’ old neighbours from Springburn Road. She had fourteen children, the youngest of whom had been evacuated to a supposedly safe haven in the country. ‘She’ll no’ torment another wean. The police are gonnae keep an eye on her, for a start. I telt them, an’ ah showed them ma weans, aw bleedin’. Aw bleedin’, they were. Their clothes were soaked wi’ blood. That monster had been beatin’ them wi’ a horse whip. Put her in jail, ah telt them. Lock her up an’ throw away the key. Fancy doin’ that tae weans.’

  ‘Is that not terrible!’ Teresa’s eyes widened. ‘And her supposed to be a respectable farmer’s wife. Isn’t it a mercy, Mrs McGregor, that you decided to pay a surprise visit?’

  ‘Aye,’ Granny said, ‘an’ good for you, givin’ her a good punchin’. Ah jist wish ah’d been there as well, tae get ma fists in along wi’ ye.’

  ‘Thank goodness they’re not all like that, Mrs McGregor. The Donaldsons are being very well treated, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Ah widnae trust anybody wi’ helpless wee weans,’ Granny said. ‘There’s far too many bad bastards goin’ about. Rich or poor, it’s aw the same wi’ bastards like that. They’re no’ right in the heid.’

  ‘Granny, watch your language.’

  ‘Granny’s quite right, Teresa. That’s what they are. Do you know, ah’m that upset. It’s gonnae take me ages tae get over seein’ ma weans aw bleedin’ like that.’

  ‘Have another cup of tea, dear. The children are all right now. It’s amazing how resilient children can be.’

  ‘Aye, the doctor sorted them an’ they’re out playin’ as happy as larry now.’

  ‘No’ always, they’re no’,’ Granny said, chomping her gums on a piece of Teresa’s home made shortbread. It was a special wartime butterless recipe but quite tasty all the same.

  ‘What do you mean, dear?’

  ‘Weans. They’re no’ aye able tae bounce back as right as rain. Look at oor Wincey. Ah always knew there was somethin’ far wrong wi’ her.’

  Mrs McGregor perked up with interest. ‘Was Wincey beaten when she was wee?’

  ‘Granny, you know what we promised.’ Teresa turned to Mrs McGregor. ‘It happened a long time ago, before she came to us. We promised—swore on the Bible—we’d never talk about it to a living soul. All I can say is that poor Wincey has never quite got over what she suffered as a child. Now please, dear, promise me you’ll never mention a word of this to anybody. Wincey would never forgive us. She’s really a very private kind of person.’

  ‘Ma lips are sealed, hen. Ah’m no’ a stair heid gossip, Teresa. Never have been. But is that no’ terrible. Poor wee Wincey. Ah’m glad she’s got pally wi’ Doctor Houston. A nice man, that.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I was hoping for wedding bells but nothing’s happened so far. An’ now he’s away to the Navy.’

  ‘Aye, so ah heard. They were needin’ doctors. Now they’re cryin’ out for women tae join up. My eldest’s goin’ tae the WAAFs and she’s goin’ tae work on somethin’ awfy secret. She’s aw excited. “It’s a lovely uniform, Mammy,” she says, as if that was aw there was tae it. It’s the same wi’ ma next one. It’s the WRENs wi’ her. “The WRENs have the smartest uniform, Mammy,” she
said. See weans!’

  Just then the front doorbell rang.

  ‘That’ll be Florence.’ Teresa got up to answer it. ‘This is her half day off. She usually does a bit of shopping and then pops in for a cup of tea.’

  In a minute Florence was in the kitchen looking very smart in a Dorita wool coat, topped with the fox fur her husband Eddie had bought her for Christmas. Her hat was from Pettigrews, a fashionable little number decorated with two bird’s wings and some veiling draped around the brim and down the back. She peeled off her gloves, finger by finger.

  ‘Hello, everybody. Oh, tea, good. I find shopping so exhausting.’

  ‘What are ye bletherin’ about,’ Granny wanted to know. ‘You work in a shop. Ye spend aw yer days in a shop.’

  Florence rolled her eyes. ‘It’s different trailing about, Granny. Anyway, in Copeland & Lye’s, we’re treated as ladies. That’s what we’re known as.’

  She took off her coat and draped it carefully over the back of the chair, before checking that her hat was perched at the right angle. Then she sat down.

  ‘Sales ladies. The ladies from the glove department, or the millinery, or whatever. It’s all very high class.’

  ‘High class?’ Granny snorted. ‘We’re aw workin’ class here, an’ don’t you forget it. Ah’m proud o’ that fact. Always have been. Ah remember …’

  ‘Have another piece of shortbread, Granny,’ Teresa interrupted. Then to Florence, ‘What have you been buying today, dear? Anything nice? Help yourself to shortbread.’

  ‘Oh, just a half dozen table napkins, but they’re very good quality linen.’

  ‘Table napkins?’ Granny hooted. ‘What next? Here, Mrs McGregor, ah hope ye’ve stocked up wi’ enough table napkins for your crowd.’

  Mrs McGregor’s chest bounced up and down with laughter. ‘Ah dinnae think ma crowd would know what a table napkin was, tae be honest.’

  Florence nibbled daintily at a piece of shortbread. ‘Yes, I could believe that, Mrs McGregor.’

  ‘Florence, there’s no call to be cheeky to Mrs McGregor.’