A dutiful daughter, p.21
A Dutiful Daughter, page 21
‘The blouse didnae look right on me after all,’ Ella said sadly.
‘That’s nice.’ Ruby’s eyes found the dress. ‘I think I’ll try it on.’
‘If ye ask me, it’d suit you better,’ Ella whispered to Mirren as they waited. ‘Why don’t you try it too?’
‘I couldn’t afford it even if it did fit. Anyway, Ruby’ll probably buy it.’
But when Ruby emerged from the cubicle she was wearing her own clothes. She thrust the dress at the waiting assistant, said tersely, ‘It’s not as nice on as it looked on the dummy,’ and sailed from the shop.
‘That means it didnae fit her but she doesnae want tae let on,’ Ella whispered as the two of them followed in her wake. Outside the shop they parted, Ella and Ruby to go home to get ready for the evening’s dancing, Mirren to return to the haberdashery store, where she bought a card of pretty glass buttons to replace the plain ones on her navy-blue frock. Then her feet drew her back to the clothes shop, to have another look at the black and red dress.
‘Would you like to try it on, madam?’ An assistant appeared at her elbow.
‘I don’t think…’
‘No harm in just trying it,’ the woman coaxed, and within seconds Mirren was curtained off from the other customers, unfastening her jacket with shaking fingers.
The georgette folds slid over her head and fell into place around her body as though it had been made especially for her. ‘It’s perfect for you, pet,’ the shop assistant said when she stepped outside the curtained changing booth. Then, surveying Mirren critically, ‘D’you mind if I try something?’ She drew a chair forward. ‘Sit here for a minute.’ Deftly she drew the pins from the tight bun at the back of Mirren’s head, combed out the long fair hair then pinned it up again. ‘You’ve got bonny hair, it’s a shame to pull it back so hard,’ she reproved, then stepped back. ‘There… have another look at yourself.’
The black material gave Mirren’s fair skin a pearly sheen, and below the broad black velvet belt sitting snugly on her hips, the subtly flared skirt lifted slightly with each movement she made, then settled into place again. Where she herself always dragged her hair back, the shop assistant had allowed it to lie in soft wings that framed her thin face and had pinned it in a soft coil, rather than a bun, on the nape of her neck. Mirren’s cheeks glowed with the pleasure of wearing the dress and she looked like a different person entirely.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror, wanting the dress as she had never wanted anything – other than Donald – before. It was made for dancing, and it was made for her. ‘How much is it?’ she asked fearfully. It was, of course, far more than she could afford. It would take weeks to save up the money and by that time the dress would have gone to someone else. Unless…
‘Could you keep it by for me, just for an hour?’ she asked timidly.
‘We don’t usually do that, but you suit it so well, dear, that I’ll make an exception… if you promise to let me know within the hour whether you’re taking it or not.’
Once outside the shop, Mirren took to her heels and ran all the way home to fetch the bank book that had once been so precious to her, because it symbolised her future in America with Donald.
There wasn’t much money left in the account now, but there was just enough to pay for the dress. She took a deep breath, then without giving herself time for second thoughts drew it all out, left the bank without a backward glance and returned to the shop, where the dress was waiting for her, already parcelled. Back home she tried it on with trembling fingers, and was relieved to see that it was still perfect for her. She tried a few dance steps, loving the way the skirt lifted and swirled and fell back into place. Her heart lifted with it. At last she was free, free of both her mother and Donald. Free to be herself.
She knew when and where Ella and Ruby were meeting to go dancing. Tonight she would be there too, in her beautiful new dance dress, and be damned to what anyone said about mourning and duty. Aunt Catherine was right: she had done her share of both.
She recalled a phrase that had caught her attention in one of the books Joe had loaned her, about a woman who had walked alone through a crowd in a procession of one. She said the words aloud, and they fitted her as well as the dress did. From now on she was determined to walk alone, in her own very special procession of one.
Although March had come in like a lion, it showed no intention of going out like a lamb. The wind held sway, rampaging across the skies, snatching up any clouds that might be considering rain and hurling them across to the horizon and out of sight; fragmenting smoke as soon as it ventured from the chimney stacks and melting it like ice cream on a child’s tongue.
Just as the sailors of old had harnessed the wind’s power to drive their ships under great stretches of canvas, so the womenfolk of Paisley hurried to make use of it. For months, while the back courts had been washed by rain or hidden beneath snow, they had been forced to dry the family wash in their small kitchens, either on overhead pulleys or draped onto clothes horses set before the fire, shutting out the heat and causing complaints from husbands and bairns anxious to huddle round the grate. Now that they had the chance to get their washing dried and freshened outside, they were bustling to and fro like ants, refilling the lines as soon as the first wash was dry enough to be taken in.
Seen from the Jarvises’ kitchen window, the big back court that served tenements on all four sides was a vast tossing sea of blankets, sheets and clothing, and even quilts, all bucking and straining against the wooden pegs that held them to the ropes, yearning to be up and away. Every line in the court was festooned and the wash-houses built onto the back of the tenement buildings had been busy all day.
Since she had come home from the mill at midday Mirren had taken advantage of her free Saturday afternoon and now, as the light began to go outside, she turned from the window and looked with satisfaction at the pile of dried laundry on her bed. The room smelled sweetly of the fresh air trapped in the folds of sheets and shirts, curtains and blouses. The hours of back-breaking ironing to come offset the pleasure of a big wind-dried wash, she thought as she fetched the shabby old laundry basket that her mother had used for as long as she could remember and set off downstairs to bring in the last of the clothes. But the bulk of the drudgery could be put off until the next day, for she and Ella were going to the dancing at the Dennistoun Palais in Glasgow.
The wind almost took the breath from her as she went out of the back close, and she had to hold her skirt down with one hand as she advanced on the washing lines, where sheets snapped and cracked like sails on the lines. Here and there women or children chased after some smaller item of clothing that had managed to break loose from its clothes pegs and make a bid for freedom.
As Mirren cleared her washing line, deftly folding the clothes before putting them into the basket, an elderly woman nearby said to her neighbour without bothering to lower her voice, ‘Would ye look at that frilled petticoat, and her mother not cold in her grave yet. Some folks have no respect for the dead!’
‘Nice day, Mrs Chalmers,’ Mirren called cheerfully. ‘I see you’re taking the chance to get your kitchen cloths washed.’
Some of the women nearby tutted disapproval while others, the younger women, giggled behind their hands, pleased to see Peggy Chalmers treated with the disrespect she so often vented on others. Mrs Chalmers, who – Helen Jarvis had once commented in Mirren’s hearing – had a tongue that could saw firewood and stir hot tar, glared as she hauled her best curtains off the line.
‘Ye’re a cheeky wee midden, so ye are, Mirren Jarvis. If yer poor mother could see ye now, flauntin’ yersel’ in the streets and goin’ intae dance halls instead of wearin’ decent black for her, she’d break her poor heart.’
‘I don’t see why. I did right by her when she needed me. I’ve got the right to live my own life. At least,’ Mirren said pertly, ‘I’m not interfering with anyone else’s… unlike some folk.’
Mrs Chalmers snatched up her basket and slammed it onto one hip. ‘You’ll come tae a bad endin’, mark my words!’
‘If I do, it’ll be an ending of my choosing and not one that other folk decide for me,’ Mirren retorted, going to help Mrs White, who kept disappearing into the sheet she was trying to take down from her line.
‘This kind of wind’s worse than a mischievous laddie,’ she panted as Mirren unwrapped her, before reaching up to unfasten the remaining pegs and bring the sheet down from the line. ‘Thanks, lassie, I’ll just bundle it up for now and fold it properly in the house, else it’ll be up and away. Was that Peggy Chalmers havin’ a go at ye?’ she asked as the two of them reached the back close. ‘Don’t mind her, she’s aye been an interferin’ busybody.’
‘I know.’ Mirren shrugged. ‘She doesn’t bother me.’ Once she would have cringed and flushed scarlet and almost died with shame when criticised by the likes of Peggy Chalmers, but those days were gone.
‘It’s an old way of life, this business of goin’ intae mournin’ for a whole year. Young folk don’t want tae be doin’ with such customs, ’specially since the war,’ Mrs White panted as she led the way upstairs. ‘That changed an awful lot of things. Ye’re quite right tae go yer ain way.’
‘I will.’ The smile Mirren put on for her neighbour’s benefit died as she returned to her own flat. The metamorphosis from submissive daughter to independent woman had not been easy, but she had come through it, and had become strong enough to ignore people such as Mrs Chalmers, who had offered no assistance when she was struggling to care for her mother, yet gossiped and whispered her disapproval now.
Logan and Belle had been foremost among her critics, making no secret of their belief that Mirren had become a fast woman.
‘Going out tae the dancin’ during a time of mournin’!’ Logan had raged at her. ‘How could ye do this tae me?’
Facing up to him was the hardest part because he was her elder brother and Helen had clung to the conviction that men should always be looked up to. But Mirren refused to give way to his blustering. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you. I don’t ask you for the entrance money to the halls, do I?’
‘Don’t try tae pretend ye don’t know what I mean, Mirren. Ye’re bringin’ down the family name. I’m a local businessman – one day Belle and me’ll own her father’s shop. How can I hold up my head among the other shopkeepers when they know that I have a sister who frequents dance halls?’
‘I doubt if they care what I do.’
‘Ye know nothin’ about business,’ Logan snapped, while Belle chimed in with: ‘And have ye even realised that with every step ye take ye’re dancing on yer own mother’s grave?’
‘I thought she was buried in the cemetery along the road, not under the floorboards at the Co-operative Halls,’ Robbie said innocently, and his brother and sister-in-law both sucked air in so loudly that, as he said later, he almost expected the pictures to be pulled off the walls.
‘I’ve never heard the like!’ Logan said when he could speak again.
‘That’s blasphemy!’ Belle’s hand fluttered at her throat.
Robbie was unruffled. ‘I’m just pointin’ out that our Mirren can’t possibly be dancin’ on Mother’s grave. And even if she did such a thing, I’d consider it her right tae do as she pleased.’ He got up from where he sat by the table, raising his voice above the babble set up by his brother and sister-in-law. ‘Nob’dy worked harder tae make Mother’s life easier than Mirren, and I know what I’m talkin’ about, for I saw it all. I was the one who had tae help her late at night when she came back from the fried-fish shop too tired tae crawl up the stairs on her own—’
‘Robbie—’
‘You keep out of this, Mirren. I’ve held my tongue for months and it’s time I had my say. When other lassies were enjoyin’ themselves, Mirren was workin’ tae earn the money tae buy special invalid food. When you and me were sleepin’ in our beds she was sittin’ up as often as not because Mother couldnae sleep. If ye ask me she’s got more right tae lead her own life any way she chooses than any of us, and if ye don’t approve of her then mebbe ye’d be better tae just stay away.’
Logan’s face had been reddening steadily throughout his younger brother’s lecture. Now he turned on Mirren, a vein throbbing in his right temple. ‘This is your doing. You’ve been allowin’ the laddie tae run loose and mix with the wrong sort.’
‘For pity’s sake, Logan,’ Robbie said wearily. ‘I’m not a schoolboy tae be told what tae do by Mirren or by you. Just go, will ye, before ye start blamin’ her for startin’ the Great War.’
‘If I go now I’ll not come back, and neither will Belle.’
‘We’ll not argue with ye on that one,’ Robbie told him, and with a final outraged snort Logan swept out, his wife hot on his heels.
‘Oh, Robbie!’
‘Don’t fret yerself; they’re no loss. Logan’s just itchin’ tae get both of us under his thumb. It’d make up for the way he has tae fawn round that old father-in-law of his and act the lackey.’
‘He might not come back.’
‘That,’ Robbie said grimly, ‘wouldnae upset me.’
‘But he’s our blood kin.’
‘That doesnae mean that we have tae like him or do as he says. We’ll manage fine without him, you and me.’
Neither Logan nor Belle came to the house after that, and although at first Mirren suffered pangs of guilt over her older brother’s absence, she had to admit that Robbie was quite right when he said that Agnes, Bob and wee Thomas were better company and more like family than Logan and Belle had ever been. Thomas and his stepfather doted on each other, and Agnes, four months from the birth of her baby, had never looked healthier or happier.
As Mirren washed and then carefully slipped the black georgette dress over her head, she hummed a snatch of dance music to herself. She tidied her hair, then smiled at her mirrored reflection as she dabbed some rose-scented cologne behind her ears. In a surprisingly short time she was recovering from the blow Donald had dealt her. She had come to enjoy walking in a procession of one.
The wind was still blowing strongly as she waited for Ella that evening outside the Dennistoun Palais. Despite the fact that she had pinned her hat on firmly, Mirren had to keep a hand on it as well, but was forced to let it go when a sudden gust of wind came swirling along the pavement, whipping about her legs and whisking her skirt up to display her petticoat to all and sundry. Prettily edged and beribboned as it was, she had no desire to let it make an exhibition of itself. But the petticoat and her hat were apparently in league. As she pulled her skirt down with both hands, her hat, released to follow its own inclinations, immediately flew from her head to be deftly fielded by a young man coming along the pavement.
‘Yours, I believe…’ he said, then as Mirren reached for it and her skirt flew up again, he took her arm and hurried her into the shelter of the doorway. ‘In here. You stand there, Martin,’ he ordered his companion, ‘and I’ll stand here, and between us we’ll keep the worst of the wind off the young lady while she pins her hat back on.’
‘Thank you.’ Mirren jammed the pins in willy-nilly in her haste, so that they pricked her scalp more than once. ‘Thank you,’ she repeated, and made to return to the pavement.
‘Are you not going in to the dancing?’
‘When my friend arrives.’
‘We’ll mebbe see you inside?’
‘Mebbe.’
He tipped his hat and she watched the two of them going in through the doors. They looked and sounded like respectable young men, and the one who had helped her had lively eyes and a cheerful smile. She might indeed watch out for them once Ella arrived.
Mebbe.
‘Sorry,’ Ella panted when she finally arrived, ‘It was Aunt Bea’s fault.’
She always seemed to be busy with one or other of her aunts these Saturday afternoons, shopping or housecleaning or helping with a difficult knitting pattern. Mirren and Ruby, who usually accompanied them, had become accustomed to arriving first when the three of them went out together on a Saturday night. When she was meeting the other two at the dance hall, Ella smuggled her dance dress and shoes and make-up out, and changed in the close before scurrying up Well Street towards the tram stop, head down, hoping that none of her aunts happened to glance out of the window and recognise her.
‘Come on…’
‘Is Ruby not here yet?’ Ella hung back as Mirren hurried through the doorway.
‘She’s to go to her granny’s birthday tea tonight, d’you not remember? Come on,’ Mirren repeated, impatient to be on the dance floor.
Ella chattered on as they took off their coats and changed into their dance shoes in the ladies’ cloakroom. ‘I thought Aunt Bea would never make up her mind. We spent the whole afternoon going up and down the High Street and along Gilmour Street, then down New Street and Causeyside. No wonder nobody else’ll go shopping with her! Finally I got her down tae a decision between two blouses.’
‘Which shop?’ Mirren glanced enviously at a girl just leaving the cloakroom as they entered, her hair in a loose, casual bob that was both stylish and easy to tend.
‘That was the problem. One of them was in Naismith & Scott’s in the High Street and the other was in the Co-operative Stores in Causeyside Street. We were back and forward so much between the two that I doubt if I’ll be able tae dance a step tonight. Ye’d never have guessed today that she’s over sixty and she’s supposed tae have a weak heart. Finally she settled for the co-operative one and I got her home. Then there was the tea tae make…’
Mirren smoothed the skirt of her black and red dress and studied her reflection critically. Now that she was free to sleep at nights and to take her meals properly, instead of eating when she could find the time, her face had rounded out. There was more colour in her cheeks, and the eyes that had once looked as though all the colour had been washed from them had now taken on a healthier shade of blue. Her hair, worn now in the softer style demonstrated by the woman in the dress shop, had a shine to it. ‘D’you think I’d suit a bob?’
