A dutiful daughter, p.12
A Dutiful Daughter, page 12
‘Invitation?’ She was keenly aware of the other two girls gawking.
‘You s-said that if I came tae the dancing ye’d attend a m-meetin’ with me.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Would ye c-care tae dance?’ he insisted, and with a helpless glance at Ruby and Ella, she got to her feet and followed him onto the floor.
‘I’m not very g-good at this,’ he said as the band struck up. It was obvious, even before they took the first step, that he spoke the truth. While the other couples danced past them, Mirren had to guide his arms into the correct hold then insert herself into them like a folded sheet of paper going into an envelope.
‘Keep your left elbow up and look straight ahead. Now move forward with your right foot… no, forward… and move to the music. One – two – three, one – two – three. Just keep counting,’ she said in despair as he narrowly missed stepping on her toes. How could anyone avoid following the natural, flowing rhythm of a waltz? ‘One – two – and close. One – two – and close. It’s the easiest dance there is.’
‘I don’t think it’s easy at all.’
‘That’s because you keep looking at your feet. Look up – over my head,’ she added as he fixed panic-stricken eyes on hers, ‘and just let the music tell you what to do.’
She almost wept with delight when the dance finally ended and they were free to return to where the other two waited, eyes bright with curiosity. ‘Where did ye meet him?’ Ruby hissed as Joe went to fetch lemonade for the four of them.
‘He’s Robbie’s friend, not mine.’
‘So why’s he dancing with you and not with Robbie?’
‘I told him he should try an evening at the dancing, but I was only joshing.’
‘Did ye see Gregor’s face?’ Ruby asked, smirking. ‘He was givin’ that lad of yours a right squint. He thinks ye shouldnae dance with anyone but him.’
‘Joe Hepburn is no lad of mine, and I don’t belong to Gregor Lewis either,’ Mirren snapped, exasperated. It was seldom enough that she got the chance to enjoy a night out. Did it have to be spoiled for her like this?
Gregor claimed her for the next dance, which happened to be a foxtrot.
‘Who’s that ye were up with the last time?’
‘A friend of my brother’s.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a welder in Fleming and Ferguson’s.’ She wished that he would keep quiet and let her enjoy the dance.
‘A tradesman? Ye’re goin’ up in the world, aren’t ye? It’ll soon cost tuppence tae talk tae ye.’ There was resentment in his voice. Tenters weren’t skilled tradesmen as such, since they learned their craft on the shop floor. Most of them had started as messenger or store boys.
‘Gregor,’ she said as they completed a deft reverse turn, ‘you’re good at your job. You’re just as important as any tradesman – more important as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Am I?’ His hold on her eased and he held her back slightly so that he could look down into her face.
‘When one of my twisting machines needs resetting, a welder’s not much use to me, is he? I need someone with your talents.’
Gregor beamed on her. ‘Right enough,’ he said, and swung her into a series of intricate turns and dips. He was more skilled than she was, possibly because he was free to go dancing more frequently. Tonight he was on top form and it took all Mirren’s concentration to keep in step with him.
‘That was grand,’ he said enthusiastically when the dance ended. ‘We’ll have the next dance too, eh?’
‘All right.’
This time she felt more relaxed and able to give herself up to the sheer pleasure of following and even anticipating him. As one, they moved across the floor and by the time the dance came to an end most of the other couples had stepped back to the edges of the floor to watch them.
As their audience applauded Gregor grinned down at her. ‘See? Ye can have a better time wi’ me than wi’ that three-legged friend of yours.’
‘He’s not a dancer.’
‘Ye’re right there,’ Gregor said contemptuously. ‘He’d be best tae stick tae his weldin’.’
Looking into his flushed, self-satisfied face, Mirren realised that the dance she had just enjoyed so much had been deliberately staged to show Joe Hepburn up. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said coldly, ‘he only came here because I challenged him. At least he’d the courage to try it even if it did make him look foolish.’ And she turned on her heel and marched back to the others to announce that she had a headache and was going home.
‘I’ll walk p-part of the way with ye.’ Joe unfolded his lanky length from his chair.
Outside in the dark street she turned on him, furious with him for ruining her evening and for putting her in a position where she had to defend him to Gregor Lewis. ‘You don’t have to walk me home. I know the way well enough.’
‘In that case I’ll say goodnight. I don’t believe ye’re workin’ next Wednesday evening?’ he added as she began to turn away from him. ‘There’s a meetin’ in Glasgow… John Maclean’s speakin’ and he’s always worth the listening. I’ll call at the house for ye at half past six.’
‘Call for me?’
‘Tae take ye tae the meetin’. It was your suggestion,’ he went on calmly as she began to splutter. ‘Ye said ye’d attend a political meeting if I went dancin’.’
‘I didn’t mean it as a promise! It was like saying…’ she floundered and could only come up with, ‘like saying I’d go to one of your meetings when the moon turned blue.’
‘Ye should never say things ye d-don’t mean. Half past six, then, next W-Wednesday,’ he reminded her before walking into the darkness.
10
Right up until the last moment Mirren told herself she would go dancing with Ella and Ruby, or go out for a walk or visit Agnes and Bob – anything to ensure that she was not at home when Joe Hepburn called to take her to Glasgow. But Robbie was determined to make her see it through.
‘You agreed tae go. Ye gave him yer word.’
‘I did not agree! I was just joshing when I said that I’d go to one of his meetings if he went to the dancing. I never for a minute thought he’d do it.’
‘I’ve never known Joe tae turn aside from a challenge.’
‘Robbie, I don’t even know the man!’
‘Ye don’t need tae know him. Just do as ye promised and attend the meetin’ with him. He went tae the dancin’, didn’t he?’
‘And a right fool he made of himself… and of me. I’d to leave early because of him. He must be desperate for folk to attend those meetings if he’ll hold me to a promise I didn’t even make!’
‘Ye’re not lettin’ Joe down,’ Robbie said in a new, firm voice she had never heard before. ‘He’s my friend and I’ll not have my own sister standing him up and making him feel foolish all over again.’
Thanks to his insistence and her own guilty conscience, she was ready and waiting when, at exactly half past six as specified, the doorbell rang.
‘Ye’ll enjoy yerself,’ Robbie said soothingly as he got up to open the door.
‘How can anyone enjoy going to a meeting?’ Mirren snapped, pinning her hat on before the mirror.
‘Miss Jarvis.’ Joe Hepburn, wearing his one and only good suit, greeted her formally when he followed Robbie into the kitchen.
‘Mr Hepburn.’
‘Ye’re awful formal, the two of ye,’ Robbie objected. ‘Can it not be Mirren and Joe? So ye’re goin’ tae hear John Maclean, eh?’
‘Aye. A grand speaker. I thought Miss… your s-sister would find him interesting.’
‘Sure to. I’ll mebbe come along myself.’
‘Did ye finish that article ye said ye’d write for the paper?’
‘There’s still a bit of work needin’ done on it,’ Robbie confessed.
‘That’s more important than the meeting. We’d best be g-going,’ Joe said, and opened the door for Mirren.
She insisted on paying her own tram fare and they scarcely spoke to each other during the journey. The audience in the hall Joe took her to was mainly made up of men, but there was a good smattering of women too. They were all plainly dressed, some shabbily, and Mirren, who had agonised over what to wear for the occasion, was glad that she had opted for a grey skirt with a three-quarter-length belted matching jacket. The seating consisted of rows of benches and when they arrived, a good twenty minutes before the meeting was due to start, the place was so full that they only just managed to squeeze into two empty spaces on a bench near the back.
From the moment the speeches started her companion forgot that she was there at all. He leaned forward, listening intently to every word, nodding or shaking his head, drumming on the floor with his feet now and again and applauding vigorously. Once he jumped to his feet to ask a question, almost knocking Mirren from the bench as he did so.
John Maclean was the final speaker and the man with the most to say. When he had finished, the place erupted in cheers and rapturous applause. The entire audience jumped to its feet, Joe catching Mirren by the arm and pulling her up with him. His face glowed as he watched Maclean and as he banged his hands vigorously together he looked as though he had just witnessed a miracle.
He was still glowing when they finally left the hall and made for the tram stop. ‘He’s a wonderful man. A wonderful speaker! What did you think?’
‘The man’s not well – you can see it in his face.’ Maclean looked as though he had once been burly, but now the flesh seemed to Mirren to hang on his big frame.
Joe stopped short. ‘Is that all ye can say after listenin’ tae him?’
‘I didn’t understand the half of what he said.’
‘That’s only because it’s all new tae ye… Socialism and the rights of workers. Ye’ll learn, the way the rest of us have.’
‘No I won’t, for I’ve no wish to learn,’ she said, but it was as though she hadn’t spoken.
‘It’s as if we’re strugglin’ up through the ground like plants.’ His pace quickened as his voice gained enthusiasm and Mirren found herself walking faster to keep up with him. ‘Then suddenly one day we break through the crust and come intae the light and discover a whole new world spread out before us. And it’s ours, only nob’dy ever told us that before. They liked keepin’ us in the dark, crawlin’ on our bellies in the mud and grateful for any crumbs they threw tae us. The pity of it is that it took a terrible thing like a war tae open our eyes tae truths we should have known all along.’
‘How could war teach folk anything apart from how daft it is to kill each other?’
‘It taught us that they need us, mebbe even more than we need them. Look at women,’ Joe rattled on as they reached the tram stop, the stammer completely gone. ‘With the menfolk all away at the war, women came forward and took on all sorts of work that they’d never done before. And they managed it.’
‘Then the men came home and took the jobs back.’
‘What else could they do, those poor souls that did manage tae get back? But the important thing is that women found out truths about themselves too. Were ye never involved in the Suffragette movement?’
‘No.’
‘Ye don’t believe in rights for women?’
She bridled at the sharp note that had come into his voice. ‘Of course I believe. I’d be daft not to, but I never had time to march or protest. I was too busy going to school, then caring for my mother and working in the mills during the day and in the fried-fish shop at night to earn the money to keep us.’
‘There ye are, then! Ye know that most women have tae work just as hard as men, and that means they’re entitled tae have a say in the way their country’s run. These politicians don’t know anythin’ about real life, so how can they decide things for us?’
He talked on and on in the same vein all the way home, while Mirren stared out of the window and longed for the journey to be over.
When they alighted in Paisley he said, ‘Ye didn’t enjoy yerself, did ye?’
‘No more than you enjoyed going to the dancing last week.’
He shrugged. ‘There’s no point in pretendin’ that I did.’
‘Why go, then?’
‘Because you thought I wouldnae do it. I don’t like givin’ in.’
‘Just like John Maclean. He should be home in his bed, not making speeches in draughty halls.’
‘Robbie told me that I’d never open yer eyes tae politics.’
‘Robbie was right.’
‘But how can we change things if we don’t know what we’re up against?’
‘I’ve got enough to do managing my own life without meddling in other folk’s,’ Mirren said, irritated. He walked in silence by her side for a few moments before asking, ‘Have ye managed tae look at that book I loaned you?’
‘I’ve started on it.’ There was no denying that Charles Dickens was a skilled writer and whenever Mirren found time to open the book, she immediately became absorbed in the story about poor little Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse, orphaned within hours, growing up hungry and intimidated and forced to sleep in a room filled with coffins his employer made, escaping only to fall into the hands of the terrible Fagin. Her problem lay in finding the time to read, for when she was at home there was always something else to be done and when she did manage to make a fifteen-minute oasis for herself, her mother almost always commandeered it.
Recalling the story now, she shivered. ‘It’s awful sad. That poor wee laddie, growing up in poverty, with nobody to care about him.’
‘There are still whole families living in poverty and misery. Dickens was an unusual man – even though he never had to live that way himself, he knew that there were others who did, and he wanted to make everyone aware, so that somethin’ would be done about it.’
‘He didn’t succeed, if it’s still happening.’
‘He managed tae make a small difference. That’s what it’s all about,’ Joe Hepburn said patiently. ‘If people can each make just a wee bit of difference then it adds up. And the more folk try, the faster it adds up.’ He dipped into his pocket. ‘I brought you another of his books.’
‘But I’ve still got that one to finish…’
He brushed her protest aside. ‘This is easier tae read. A Christmas Carol… it’s one of my favourites.’
She took it from him, then asked reluctantly as they reached the closemouth, ‘D’you want to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘I’d best be gettin’ home.’ He held out his hand. ‘Goodnight, Mirren.’
‘How was John Maclean?’ Robbie wanted to know as soon as she went in.
‘He doesn’t look well.’
‘Is that all ye’ve got tae say?’
‘Yes,’ said Mirren, and went through to her mother. Robbie was still writing when she came back, but a cup of tea waited for her on the table.
‘That stammer of your friend’s seems to come and go,’ she commented as she drank it.
‘Stammer?’ he asked blankly, then: ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard it sometimes. It’s because of something that happened when he was away at the fighting. He never seems tae have it when he’s teachin’ a class or talkin’ tae folk he feels comfortable with.’
That would explain why the man’s speech had been clear and easy when he got onto the subject of his beloved socialism. Mirren rinsed her empty cup, and Robbie’s, at the sink, then yawned and looked pointedly at the clock. ‘Are you not ready for your bed? I know I am.’
As she undressed, she felt the weight of the book Joe had loaned her in her pocket. She took it out and put it in a drawer, knowing that it would send out reproachful signals until she managed to find time to finish Oliver Twist and start on it. Reading in bed was useless; apart from the shadows in the alcove that held her bed, she tended to fall asleep as soon as she swung her bare feet from the linoleum and onto the bed.
Her best opportunities came at work where, if her six frames were working smoothly, she could stand behind one of the machines, safely out of sight of the mistress’s sharp eyes, and read the book she had smuggled into her apron pocket. But that luxury had its own dangers, for as soon as she opened the book at the place marked by a torn scrap of brown paper everything vanished… the thunder of the machines, the flooring under her bare feet, sticky with oil and lumpy with the fragments of yarn, the reek of the oil from the racing machinery. And she became so absorbed in Oliver’s travails that she forgot to keep an eye out for Mrs Drysdale. On more than one occasion Libby McDaid, who worked beside her, had alerted her just in time.
In early September Robbie completed his apprenticeship and a few days later he came home from work, white-faced, to announce that he had been laid off.
Mirren had snatched a few minutes’ respite to concentrate on the bedjacket she was crocheting for her mother’s Ne’erday gift. With little money to spend on luxuries, she usually started knitting and crocheting round about Easter in preparation for the New Year celebrations. Now the soft blue wool, bought ball by ball from her weekly wages, fell from her fingers and her mouth went dry. ‘But why?’
He threw his cap towards the back of a fireside chair. It missed and fell to the floor, where it lay neglected and ignored. ‘Because they don’t want tae pay me a time-served man’s wages,’ he said savagely. ‘It’s cheaper tae use apprentices.’
‘They can’t do that, surely?’
‘They can do whatever they like, Mirren. They’re the bosses; we’re just dross under their feet.’
‘Is that what Joe Hepburn says?’
‘He speaks more sense than most.’
‘Mebbe it’s believing in the likes of him that’s lost you your job.’
‘I’ve got my own opinions and a right tae them. I suppose you’d prefer it if I was one of those mealy-mouthed boot-licking creatures that fawn round the bosses?’
‘Robbie, the likes of us can’t afford to speak out against those who pay our wages!’
‘It had nothin’ tae do with that!’ He had started to take his jacket off; now he shrugged it back over his shoulders and looked for his cap. Finding it on the floor behind the chair, he clapped it on his head.
