Pandora's Box

1. Pandora's Box Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me…. The long forgotten song played through her head over and over. She waited, half hoping for the needle to slide abruptly, harshly off the end of the gramophone record, make the music stop for good, but it never did. It just returned to the beginning and started again. Strange how a song could catch a moment of time or a piece of life and brand it into our souls forever, the way nothing else could, she thought, not for the first, or last time. Don’t sit under the apple tree… Memories too raw and sharp pushed to the surface, soaring joy to searing pain and all the mess and confusion in between. Some buried so deep it had been almost more than she could bear to dig them up. And yet, and yet, now she sat, shovel set aside, task almost complete, excitement, anticipation and dread all jostling for position, Pandora’s box unearthed for good or ill, forced open, its contents spilling over. She’d been cajoled into it at first by her enthusiastic and encouraging niece, agreed in a moment of weakness, or was it unconscious desire, to let her set everything in motion. Like the proverbial boulder at the top of the hill it had begun to roll, slowly at first then gaining momentum, till there was no chance of stopping it, except that this boulder would become suffocated and choked with moss along the way. Despite this, she knew that ultimately the decision to delve into her untidy past had been her own. She bore all the hurt and responsibility as well as most of the hope entirely alone. … with anyone else but me. With an effort she brought herself back to a present that more and more these days felt like a dream, somewhere she had no place or right to be. She gazed around the vast noisy echoing cathedral space of glass and concrete and plastic, feeling entirely out of her element, as if she’d been transported involuntarily to another time and space. People everywhere, scurrying to and fro, demented souls talking to themselves out loud, others wearing those ubiquitous white hearing aids, as if a deafness epidemic had become the unforeseen scourge of the 21st century. “Would you like some coffee auntie?” her solicitous niece had enquired with a nod towards a centrally located food outlet. It had an Italian name, which at least gave her some comfort of the familiar. Her steady, deep grey eyes smiled a secret little half smile in remembrance of childhood Italian cafes. Garish table clothes, shiny dark wood seats, the unmistakable café smell, a heady mixture of coffee and cakes and stale cigarette smoke and polish. Their wondrous ice cream, a rare treat, served by the jolly Luigi or his sullen, unwilling son Silvio, had been the stuff of dreams. Of course Luigi and Silvio had quietly disappeared when the war came. Italy was the enemy and jolly Italian café owners, purveyors of delicious treats, were now potential traitors and had to be unceremoniously removed and interned.

She’d sat with her niece perched on an extremely uncomfortable stool, in, truth be told, a fair amount of pain. But a woman of her innate dignity and gentile refinement would never ever complain. In any case the secret aches and strains of old age, she could see, entirely passed by her kindly, gregarious middle-aged niece, despite all her fussing to make sure her aunt was comfortable. She’d sat ramrod straight and sipped tentatively and politely at what appeared to be a foamy pudding of some sort. She couldn’t quite decide if she tasted coffee or chocolate. She’d agreed to a muffin when encouraged by her niece but it wasn’t what she’d expecting at all and seemed to be some sort of fruit laden, dense, yeasty cake. She’d have been far happier with a nice cup of tea and a jaffa cake... At least now she was back in the relative comfort of the airport waiting lounge’s upholstered cloth seats. A strange notice on the wall just to her left, its meaning impossible to guess - WI-FI. Wi–Fi? The coffee and cake – muffin - had made her sleepy. Her mind drifted. Wi-Fi, now was that like Hi-Fi or Sci-Fi? Fidelity or fiction, Fidelity, fiction. The fiction of fidelity? She’d married not long after the war to George. Respectable from the top of his bowler hat to his highly polished patent leather shoes. A neat, dapper man with a steady job in the menswear department of Copland and Lye. Brought home a lot more than could be expected by most in those austere post-war years. Rose to be assistant manager. Upright citizen, respected in his community and in the local Kirk. George was the ‘ideal husband’, dependable. They were a model couple, neat little flat they’d lived in, beautifully furnished in a timeless sort of way. She’d visited the local auction sales and bought wisely, frugally, and with effortless taste. Of course there had been no children to mess the place or break the ornaments. When nieces and nephews visited they were warned to be on their best behaviour. People had whispered to each other, “Wasn’t it sad they had never been blessed, such a lovely couple”, but of course they’d never ever utter it to her face. Fidelity and fiction. Very, very late every Friday and Saturday night, and just occasionally during the week too, she would listen, ears straining for the sound of his key in the latch. Finally, she’d hear it, quiet and discreet, just like George. She would lie in her twin bed, in the neat little room they nominally shared, rigid, feigning even breaths, pretending to be asleep, oblivious, unquestioning, heart pounding. That was just the way it was. She never complained. She was lucky to have him, she knew. That had always been inferred, without the need for words. Her niece returned from checking the arrivals screen, a little flustered - she noted the tiny beads of perspiration - smiling encouragement and gently grasping her arm. The

flight from New York had been delayed by two hours so there was nothing to do but wait. Correctly gauging her need for silence, the younger woman retrieved a dogeared old favourite from her messy bag, settling further into her seat as she turned to chapter one. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”. She had retained her family’s renowned fine-boned beauty into old age. Her steady deep grey eyes were intelligent still, unfathomable and discreet – bespectacled now, watchful too, as she scanned the busy concourse. Of course some people had tried to bomb this place last summer. Drove a jeep loaded with explosives at the main entrance on the first day of the school summer holidays, but were stopped at the door. Two weeks before she’d visited her dear old friend Maisie in a hospital close by. Turned out the nice young Asian doctor caring for her had been one of the occupants of the jeep. The terrorists had encountered the familiar Glasgow disdain for anyone who tried to get above themselves, or make themselves out to be anything special. It was really just luck that the bombs hadn’t exploded, but nobody felt inclined to tell the story that way. Glaswegian bravado had saved the day and no one would be allowed to forget it. Yet people had been shocked too that anyone would think to target safe old Glasgow. “The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!” How they’d giggled as their mother had run through the house, yelling and banging on doors, urging her children down to the Anderson shelter, as the air raid sirens wailed in anger that first time. And then came Clydebank. Night after night, they’d listen as the two-tone engine sounds passed overhead. ”Crump, crump, crump. Crump crump. Crump, crump, crump. Crump crump.” She would play an urgent little game. She’d sit hunched on the hard mattress, hugging her pillow and Brown Ted, forcing the insistent sound into the rhythm of happy, familiar tunes. A whistling noise meant that a stray bomb was falling very close, and in those screeching moments she’d hold her breath, scrunch her eyes tight shut and squeeze her ears with her fingers, counting the seconds, waiting for the moment of oblivion, and wondering if there would be time for it to hurt? One day Jane McPherson’s house had been hit and her mother killed outright. Safe old Glasgow. Her brother, eldest in the family had joined the RAF and flew Lancasters. When he came home on leave he’d stayed tucked up in his warm bed during air raids, to his mother’s helpless chagrin. Later he had been decorated along with his crew for flying his plane home and landing it safely. The bomb bay doors had jammed, and instead

of bailing out over Norway, and possibly killing people on the ground they’d carried on home. After the war he joined Glasgow Corporation as a clerk and never went near another plane, not even as a passenger. She had two older sisters as well, Maggie and Isa. They were giggly, flighty, imagined themselves as the leading ladies they watched all agog, twice a week, in the local picture house. Dreams of Hollywood recreated in the local Ascot. She knew Maggie lived her life as Rita Hayworth. Her wise young eyes watched amused as her sister grew her hair like Rita’s, aped her way of moving and talking, walking the grid of streets in Glasgow as if it was a mini New York, not looking up too high so that she could pretend the solid, sooty, Victorian merchant buildings were skyscrapers. So when the GI’s started arriving from America, well, Maggie and Isa were just in seventh heaven. They talked excitedly and often in unison about the American soldiers, their extra smart uniforms, their exotic accents, the money they had to spend. Every last one a handsome film star dropped straight in from Hollywood. They’d go out to the Locarno or the Albert, dressed to the nines in their pretty home sewn frocks, eye brow pencilled and ruby lipped, and would come home too brighteyed, sometimes slightly dishevelled, purses stuffed with nylons and chocolate, reprising all the tunes, spinning round the living room in remembrance, in the arms of phantom partners. As the youngest in the family she could only listen to these tales of glamour, and dream, until one spring day… A charity event, dreamt up spontaneously by the generous GIs for the children of Clydebank who’d lost their tenement homes, their parents, their siblings, their childhood. They’d put on a show and charged only what local people could afford. Everyone in the neighbourhood squeezed into the Church Hall, convinced that they were going to be given a privileged glimpse of Hollywood or Broadway. Some of soldiers were extremely talented and everyone last one of them beautiful to her, or, if not handsome, then at least uproariously funny. She laughed and clapped and cheered in delight, wept at the sentimental songs and fell in love with theatre utterly and forever from that day on. Afterwards came the dancing. She was not yet seventeen and she’d been allowed to stay for this because it was in a good cause. Her very first dance; with the added bonus of a real-life, bona fide American dance band on stage. Ah the Americans, smart, accomplished on the floor, faces shining with well-fed health, so charming and polite. The Glasgow boys really should learn something from these young men, she’d thought. The offhand, inarticulate, awkward, pale, pinch-faced local boys hadn’t stood a chance her older self thought wryly. At the time she remembered thinking that the GIs’ mothers must be wonderful people to have brought up sons with such impeccable manners. She hadn’t noticed him at all until just before he reached her, where she sat with her sisters. Then there he was, all effortless graceful movement and charm, eyes dark and deep and liquid, asking her if she’d care to dance. Well, of course she’d said yes, and allowed herself to be swept up in a dream. He’d walked her home and placed a chaste kiss of farewell on her cheek. Then he had asked to see her again. She was afraid of her father and hated to disappoint her mother, could imagine them reacting with something approaching horror, but she’d had no choice. In any case she heard her

voice uttering yes, before she’d quite made up her mind. Little secret trips to Kelvingrove park in apple blossom time. Hand in hand. She was glad she could introduce him to Glasgow while it was showing itself off at its very best. In the winter it was dark and greasy and dank and bitterly cold and sad, she always felt, especially so in its drab wartime garb. In May Glasgow was dressed up in it’s finest Sunday clothes, nature freshly and newly alive and benign, bursting with vivid colour and people and sound, birds, flowers, trees, cherry and apple, heavy sweet scented blossom, inhaled almost like a narcotic. Sitting under the trees laughing and talking about everything, white and pink blossom landing on them like confetti at some secret, pagan wedding ceremony. She wondered if it would have been quite the same if she’d met him in winter. She’d taught him some local secrets too. He laughed at her serious face as she instructed him with great solemnity to breathe in deeply whenever they passed the entrance to Hillhead Subway Station on Byres Road. Yes, it was the Glasgow ‘Subway’, never the ‘Tube’; that was London, didn’t even use the generic term ‘Underground’ that she heard often nowadays. Then it was always the ‘Subway’. Anyway, it had an inexplicable deeply satisfying earthy smell that she’d never encountered anywhere else and never would. One of the hidden little joys of Glasgow. One day, he dared her to go on a trip with him to Loch Lomond in a borrowed US army jeep, gears grinding and grunting. Fortunately the journey to Balmaha was not far. She allowed herself a secret ghost of a smile in quiet remembrance of a sweet, pure happiness that she wished she’d been able to bottle and keep hidden in a most secret place as insurance. Laughter and giggles and the wind in her hair, allowing her to push to the back of her mind the guilt she’d felt at the lies she’d told her family. How he had adored the soft light and the gentle pastel colours and textures of the hillsides and the water. He had exclaimed so out loud in his open American way that never seemed afraid of ridicule. A northern June day that seemed to last forever, did so still in her mind, endless twilight painting the soft hillsides, lengthening shadows deepening the contrast between light and shade, impressionist, changeable hues of browns, greens and yes the cliché purple of the heather, twice the fun as you watched the moving, swaying reflection reproduced in the rippling waters of the ever darkening loch. You could feel your senses drunk on nature at it’s most impossibly beautiful, joy and a sense of peace tempered only by the inevitable evening scourge of the midges, biting into sweet flesh. They’d found a spot where they could be totally alone, an easy thing to do there. Enjoyed a picnic of his rations, chocolate as a heavenly treat. He had lain beside her and talked of wide vistas and big open skies and she’d tried her best to imagine it, finding the idea of it almost impossibly alien as she lay there next to him, daring in her shy way to brush her fingers through his dark hair, surrounded as they were by soft warm comforting cosy hills, in a little corner of this great planet that seemed to belong to her, be part of her, in an organic way. Had she really felt all this, her older self wondered, or was memory imposing mature insight? Had it in fact been his glamorous presence that had given this day of days its

glorious sheen? She only knew in that place on that day, finally in the warm shelter of his arms she’d felt immune from everyday fears like war and separation and pain and loss and sorrow. They’d seen each other – always surreptitiously – as often as they could all summer long. Then one day in early September, trees heavy and dark and ripe, sweet damp dank mist hanging in the air they’d met at the entrance to Kelvingrove Park. And he’d told her. Marching orders. His unit were moving south the very next day. There had been no time to take it in. Tears, vows to write, heartfelt, earnest declarations of love, unbearable sadness, and one last evening together. They should have spent it in some enchanted forest, or at least the local equivalent, but there had been no time left. It had started raining and the ground was sodden and anyway this was real life. He’d led her down a black deserted lane just off Great Western Road. People nowadays would find it hard to imagine a city blacked out, so dark you couldn’t see your fingers in front of your face. Seedy, sordid, sweet, glorious memories of one last reckless night of frantic, ferocious passion, against a damp tenement wall. Then he was gone. She remembered running home, thoughts in a whirl, stockings and shoes soaked by unseen puddles; gasping in shock at a sudden painful glancing blow to her arm, the lamp post looming just too late in the dark; recalling that night when she’d caught her sisters chortling, whispering too loudly, naively, thinking she couldn’t hear them, now praying to herself that it was true. “If you do it standing up you can’t get pregnant!” She’d crept back into the house at two in the morning, knocked her shin hard and loud against a chair or a table in the bedroom she shared with her sisters, urged them to stay silent as they snickered conspiratorially. She lay awake on top of the bed covers, eyes brimming, body shuddering, staring at nothing, not wanting to think, only knowing she wanted to die, just as she’d begun to live. She’d missed him and mourned him, her first love. He wrote, every other day for a while, sweet letters that she’d bundled up, tied neatly with a ribbon, of course, and kept hidden in a scuffed old shoe box beneath her bed, and she’d always replied straightaway, as best she could. But after a while the gaps between his letters got wider, until eventually they petered out. She would work at rationalising this in her head, urging herself to believe that he was so busy training for invasion he no longer had time to write. But more and more in the weeks that followed, a creeping cold doubt would seep into her. The pain of it was physical. It would start at her fingertips, run up her arms, past her shoulders, catching at her throat, then down again, piercing her heart, then on into the pit of her stomach, twisting it painfully. Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.

She expected the trees would be just as beautiful in Wiltshire in May. Then came the nausea. She’d remained in denial for three months until she’d finally had to face the stark, awful truth. Most of her memories of that time had congealed into a horrible illdefined mess, squashed down deep, just out of reach, vague and blurry, until she’d begun recently to unearth them. One or two had remained pin sharp. Confessing first to her wide-eyed sisters, who’d run to her brother, home on leave. He said he’d arrange something for her through his RAF connections. The RAF boys had needed some comfort other than drink between suicide missions, she’d supposed, and had become unwilling experts in the matter. She could remember the warmth of her brother’s comforting arm round her shoulder as he’d told her not to worry, got a number from a friend; hazy memories of following him one deep winter’s night down to a seedy row of soot-blackened tenements. Yes it actually was a back street, an icy, cobbled Dickensian cliché, right by the docks too; till she stopped, suddenly realising she could never, ever go through with it. The final awful scene with her parents, mother screaming that she’d always been the sensible one, as if by saying it very loud she could make it so once again, the shame she’d brought on the family, her father strangely silent all the while, watching. The sudden hot shock of the back of his hand across her face had stung, but it had been the cold, cruel, dead, empty look in her father’s eyes as he did so that would brand itself into her memory forever. She’d tried more than once to write to her love, wondering if she dared call him that any longer, at his training base in the south, to tell him the news. She knew she ought to. She’d sat there, at the wobbly little ink-stained table by the window of her room, God knows how long, biting at her lip until it was raw, pen poised over paper, fingers paralysed, unable to write down the words, and give substance and reality to something she could not believe herself, despite her swelling belly. A baby? No, she never told him. Eventually they’d sent her off to an unmarried mother and baby home in England, run by nuns, who’d made it clear to her and her fellow inmates, in deed and word, that they were there first and foremost to atone for their Sin. Labour. Memories of bare off-white scuffed walls, the harsh light from a bare ceiling bulb and a large round metallic clock ticking loudly, busily intent on marking out the seconds, minutes, hours. Dressed in a rough cotton gown, blotched with the faint pale pinkish, brownish stains of former tragedies, she hadn’t had a clue what was happening to her body. In her ignorance she’d been certain she going to die that dreary June day. Of course there had been no pain relief. Each contraction burned like six sharp knives twisting in her gut; the pain, the hard eyes of the nuns seemed to suggest, barely

adequate punishment for her shameless wanton act. In those sweating, excruciating moments she believed utterly in the nuns. She was enduring the righteous retribution of a vengeful Old Testament God. There had been one young pale dark-eyed nun who stayed by her side throughout, smiled silent warm encouragement and wiped her brow and squeezed her hand in empathy when she thought no one else was looking. She didn’t know how she would have got by without her. From time to time she’d gazed out of the rusting barred window at the sad grey sky, rain never far off, trees bending this way and that, restless and impatient in the swirling wind. June. At times she would be briefly transported back to that golden unending day by the loch, almost a year ago, nature on show at it’s most benign, her love by her side, until another contraction would drag her roughly back into the present. In thrall to nature once again, but this time wearing its cruellest garb. Nature in the raw, laughing heartily at the transitory aspect of happiness. Then someone said that they could see the head. Not long after, one final exhausted push and her son popped out like a bar of soap. There he was on the mattress. Absurdly, in those first seconds, her uppermost emotion had been surprise. Surprise that a perfect little stranger had emerged so suddenly from within her. They’d scooped him up and taken him away to clean him before he’d had time to cry. It was much later that she’d heard the news, D-Day, Invasion, the Second Front. June 6th 1944, the day her most precious thing in all the world was born. “Auntie!” The voice seemed to come from far, far away. She felt as if she was swimming up through a deep viscous pool of molasses to the surface. Her niece was tapping her gently on her shoulder and presenting her watch. “An hour to go.” She peered groggily at the younger woman’s kindly face, watching the progress of the little shadow of concern as it crossed. The face was redder now, beads of nervous perspiration more prominent. Then her niece’s voice again, loud against a muffled announcement. “I’ll just go and get us some more water. It’s so stuffy in here”. She nodded in agreement, almost fully recovered, enough at least to record her bemusement, not for the first time, at the twenty-first century need to pay for little plastic bottles of mineral water. Here in Glasgow anyway, where everyone knew that the ever-abundant soft Loch Katrine tap water was the safest, sweetest stuff in the world. She’d been sitting awkwardly and her joints were stiff and achy. She got up to stretch her limbs, taking careful effort to disguise the pain she was in. She walked the length of the teeming concourse, slowly as ever nowadays, dodging bouncing children, trundling suitcases, (what a simple yet wonderful invention those little wheels were), and those people who always walked backwards, reading screens, talking into phones, oblivious to their fellow human beings until they jabbed them with sharp

elbows or trod painfully on toes. She found her way to the ladies room. As she looked in the mirror she caught sight of herself as she was now, always a shock these days, as her grandmother stared back. Then she sighed quietly, reprimanded herself for her vanity. She knew her inherited bone structure made her luckier than many. But still… “Mr DeMille, just keep it in long shot”, she chuckled inwardly. Norma Desmond, poor old soul, had been all of 50 for God sakes, 50! She splashed her face with cool water, and felt much better. She carefully added a touch of powder to her nose and cheeks. She would never give up making the effort, and especially not today. In those wartime days, she mused, tragedy or the threat of it had been the close and constant companion of all, yet no one ever complained, or for one moment considered the need for counselling or therapy from so-called experts, the way they did today. Why, they just got on with it, soldiered on, made the best of things. Mustn’t grumble! Nowadays they’d probably expect someone like her to go on one of those awful talk shows she came across sometimes by accident on television, populated by people with a reckless and undignified need to spill out all their secrets to a barely interested world. She made her way back to her seat, and daintily sipped at some of the water offered by her niece. Some smart young entrepreneur really should start bottling Loch Katrine water. They’d make a fortune. Before he’d been born she’d been afraid to even think of loving him - or her. Knew the decision she had made and would be expected to stick to. But all that changed the moment, they’d brought the little bundle back to her, all clean and soft and warm, and she’d looked at the wondrous reality of him and loved him. Even the severe, sharp, disapproving nuns forgot themselves briefly and seemed suddenly blurred at the edges, momentarily transformed into kindly kindred spirits. “For a spell or two no one seems forlorn. This comes to pass, when a child is born.” Silly emotional Christmas song! It annoyed her intensely that it never failed to bring tears, every single time she heard it, usually and embarrassingly over tinny little speakers in busy shops at Christmas time. Six precious weeks. She’d look at him as she held him close, could never get enough of looking, at the curve and colour and softness of his little cheeks, his full soft lips, his beautiful long dark eyelashes. She loved it most of all when he suckled on her breast, cosy little bundle, all earnest frowning concentration. This little soul with no experience of the world, yet with the wisdom of the ages in his face. He looked so perfect and new and fresh it was as if the colours hadn’t dried yet. She adored his little hands and fingers and his absurdly tiny fingernails, sharp enough to cut as he reached out and gripped.

They’d put on miniature protective cotton mittens after a day or so for his sake and for hers. She would watch him as he slept and wonder at the little movements and sounds he made. What on earth could you dream about when your life experiences were so limited? Happy sensuous dreams, she hoped, of scents and textures and touch and taste and sound and love. She’d be so wrapped up in him, would stare at him for so long, burning the details of his neat little features into her mind, than when she turned to adult faces they would appear grotesquely, comically huge. And she loved his eyes most of all. Eyes the colour of Tuesday. She’d always been too embarrassed to tell people that she saw colours and shapes for all the days of the week and the months and the years - for numbers as well - once it had dawned on her that this didn’t happen for others. She’d laughed out loud not long ago as she watched a documentary. Goodness, it even had a name. Synaesthesia they’d called it. Pretty rare seemingly. Even suggested it was some kind of anomalous wiring of the brain. People who associated words, numbers or names, sometimes musical notes with colour or shape or texture, and even sound and smell. She’d been amused and just a little proud, she was forced to admit, to discover that she shared this trait with many of the great artists, musicians and writers. She shifted slightly in the firm airport seat, ostensibly to get more comfortable, sat a little more upright, clasped her hands in her lap, looked around at the echoing concourse with unseeing eyes, then stared down at a little piece of torn biscuit packet on the floor, momentarily transfixed by a fly flitting over the letters McV in its search for infinitesimal crumbs. She was consumed by a desperate compulsive need to tell herself the whole story, set everything straight, in careful chronological order in her head before she could move on to the next chapter of her life. But she had to steel herself to dig up the next memory. One day they came and took him away, her little love, her joy, her life. And she’d screamed and screamed and screamed and never, ever stopped. She knew she’d done it out loud at first, God knows for how long, clinging hopelessly to the pale young nun for a comfort she knew would never come. She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d stopped screaming out loud, when it had become internalised? Couldn’t pinpoint it in her memory. But the scream was always there. Most of the time she managed to keep it to a tiny thin sound, insistent, but well hidden within the deepest recesses of her soul. Of course from time to time, it would emerge. Birthdays, special landmarks, and all those unexpected times as well, it would pop to the surface, deafening her, sometimes a pure high pitched piercing noise, icicle sharp, sometimes a long low wailing persistent moan. It became part of her and she’d learned to adapt to its presence, and eventually, to live with it. And no one ever knew that she did.

What had made it worst of all was that she’d signed the papers. She’d had no choice. All she could offer him was a life of destitution. She wanted him to be happy, to have the best chances. It was the only gift she could offer him. Her parents would never accept him, and a letter not long after from a kindly GI friend in Normandy, revealing too late how he’d often talked about her, before gently recounting horror stories of Omaha beach and selfless courage and leading from the front, putting paid to those silly, futile, little dreams of a happy little life for the three of them under wide American skies. There are dreams that cannot be, there are storms we cannot weather. How she’d loved that show when she’d seen it in later years in touring productions, twice at the Kings and once at the Playhouse in Edinburgh. Silly and corny of her, she knew, but she always felt, through stinging tears that Fantine was singing it directly to her. And oh yes, she was only too aware of how she’d cruelly denied him the knowledge that he was going to be a father. She had long pondered the possible consequences of that naïve and selfish piece of negligence. Just another little item to stow tidily away in a corner of her ever-expanding Pandora’s box of regrets. She went home. No one discussed her child or mentioned him ever. She’d received a little package of knitted clothes from her mother shortly after his birth; that was all. It was as if her son, and that wonderful summer of love had never been. And she got up and got on with life, soldiered on, made the best of things, as was expected of her. *** George was the only child of her mother’s best friend Mrs Sutherland. Yes, the two close neighbours had known each other pretty intimately for over twenty years, but for her mother’s generation it was always the formal ‘Mrs Wilson’, ‘Mrs Forbes’, ‘Mrs Sutherland’. Mrs Sutherland's husband was called Arthur. He was always known as Arthur. So it was Mrs Sutherland and – Arthur. Funny, she’d never thought about the strangeness of that until now. It had remained that way for her mother all the years she'd known them. And of course, there was George. He was over ten years older than her. ‘Harmless’, she’d thought, would be the first adjective that would spring to mind to describe George. He was the kind of person no one would ever noticed in a crowd, would struggle to be served in the crush of a packed bar, or get a waiter to bring the bill. Medium height, medium build, midbrown hair, pleasant enough to look at, neat and dapper. Harmless, but it had to be said, a little dull.

The ample and ebullient Mrs Sutherland, it was abundantly clear, was by now desperate to find a ‘nice’ girl for George. She was one of the very few people to whom her mother had confided her youngest daughter’s secret shame, officially at least. Everybody knew, of course, but nobody ever said. The number of hushed little conversations that had stopped as soon as she was within earshot was proof enough of that, especially in the first months after her return. Mrs Sutherland, however, had been allowed into the highly exclusive official inner circle. Rest assured she’d made sure that her son George knew too. His mother had obviously decided that he’d left it so late he’d had no choice but to make do with ‘soiled goods’. He would never ever call her that, he was far too polite, but she’d always known he thought of her this way somewhere. He was never anything other than completely kind, but nevertheless, the little shadow was always there, and along with it the lurking, silent threat that he might just use it as a weapon if really pressed. George had been invited for afternoon tea, and to dinner and she would be asked reciprocally to the Sutherland’s. Eventually, George, ‘shy with girls’, had plucked up courage and done what was expected of him. They went out on their first official date, to the tearoom at Copland and Lye, in Sauchiehall Street, where, of course, he got staff discount. They'd had to stifle guffaws at the sight of the stern-eyed, ever so slightly overweight waitress in her black tightly fitting dress, white starched apron and little white starched cap, as she placed the pot of tea for two and scones and jam down on the table just a little too heavily, with glinting disapproval. It was a bit like laughing in church in the quiet, stuffy ultra gentile atmosphere of the tearoom. But the ice was broken. George was quite amusing once you got past his natural reserve and would recount entertaining anecdotes of eccentric customers, accompanied by brave little attempts at voices and mannerisms. After that they had made regular trips to the pictures, and undaunted, by that first experience, even occasionally would venture into Miss Cranston’s Willow Tearooms. If Copland and Lye was the church, Miss Cranston’s was the cathedral. After their third date he’d kissed her sweetly on the lips before saying goodnight at her door, and from that day on they were officially courting. He was pleasant enough company and kind, but there was no unending sunlit loch-side day in June, seared into memory, no apple blossom confetti, no catch in the throat or thump of the heart at the unexpected sight of him, no breathless, passionate declarations of love, no desire to die in his arms. She knew younger generations would never understand, but when, six months later he asked her to marry him, she’d said yes straight away. Nowadays at the first sight of trouble they were falling over themselves in the rush to the divorce courts. But she had lived in an utterly different world. She had no independent means. Her only hope of escape from the ever-present threat of her father’s cold ire, and to make a home for herself was to marry. She’d left school at fourteen, at her father’s insistence and she would never ever stand up to him. He didn’t think girls were suited to cope with the mental rigours of higher education and was scathingly disdainful of what he'd called ‘bluestockings’, women of education. No, she was an accomplished seamstress and a proficient cook, neat and tidy, perfect for her place in life as a housewife.

They were married in June 1946, and moved into their neat little West End flat, no money left for a honeymoon. Their wedding night was a disaster. They’d tried a few times intermittently after that, but things were no better. He was slow to anger, but one night, in what she knew was self-defence, he’d accused her of being frigid, and after that they just gave up. A few months into the marriage George started his secret nocturnal trips. The first time he’d just said he was going out and would be back late. She’d fretted and worried, peering through curtains, anxiously checking and rechecking the time, heart pounding in panic, until she’d heard his key in the latch. She’d leapt into her twin bed, hauled up the covers and feigned sleep. Then, as it became a regular twice and often thrice weekly occurrence she’d learned to know what to expect and in the secret depths of her soul guessed the truth of her place in his life. He never told her where he went and she never asked or gave indication that she cared or even knew. She would pretend to be comatose and oblivious when he returned home, but she could never give up worrying about him, panicking if was even five minutes late, and fearing the shame for both of them if he was ever found out. They had a silent unspoken pact that both adhered to rigidly. ‘I won’t tell your secrets, if you don’t tell mine’. In some strange way, despite her fears, it made her feel closer to him. After all, she’d reasoned eventually, both of them were innocent victims of the age into which they’d been born, and despite her worries and fears, it gave them a sort of kindredship. They’d eventually settled into companionable but separate lives. He was an avid collector of the strangest things, which thankfully he’d agreed to keep in the spare room, toy cars, stamps and even thimbles. Although his chronic asthma had left him unfit for military service he had a passionate interest in the war recently ended, a mystery to her. She did adore one of his hobbies. He loved to bake and his selection of light fluffy cakes, and delicious tablet, a sinful buttery, sugary teeth-rotting treat, became some of life’s happy compensations. She knew she was lucky to have inherited a physique that never gained weight, however much she ate. Confectionery in place of sex? Well, some people would call her lucky. And anyway she had her own passions. She smiled wryly to herself, but anyone observing her closely in that split second might also have caught the merest hint of a twinkle in her eyes. She was briefly transported forward in time in a headlong rush, as the echoing announcement declared that the flight from New York was now expected in twenty minutes. She watched as her niece stuffed the second Mrs de Winter, nasty Mrs Danvers and the dashing but melancholy Max de Winter – she always pictured Lawrence Olivier - into her capacious handbag and began to pace the floor. She’d never liked the big department stores, not even the classy ones like Pettigrew and Stephen or Watt Brothers, although she did go to Copland and Lye, for the

discount. Mainly she shopped sparingly and sensibly in the proudly independent little West End dress shops of Byers Road and Great Western Road, making thoughtful purchases, resulting in a style that was classic and timeless. She loved antiques fairs, and along with her best friends from childhood, Maisie and Moira, would go along bright and early to seek out bargains. She would avidly read the antiques catalogues and books borrowed from the local library. She was not too proud to say that over the years she’d become a bit of an expert in Royal Worcester, Royal Doulton and Spode, china tea sets, dinner services, classic figurines, ornaments of all sorts. She’d also developed a practiced eye for items of classic occasional furniture, and she would thrill in delight whenever she managed to beat an unwitting seller down to a bargain price. She and her friends would then go off for lunch, to a café or if feeling flush to an Italian. She supposed they’d been ladies who lunched, long before the phrase was coined. She loved all the performing arts, and along with Maisie would go to the Scottish Ballet, and slightly less often to the Scottish Opera, depending on the production. She wasn’t too keen on the Germans, but the Italians were marvellous – just like their ice cream! She loved classical music, especially the Romantic period. Her burning passion, however, was theatre. She’d go to everything at the Kings , the Alhambra, even the Pavilion, pantomime, musicals, comedies and tragedies, the whole gamut. But there was one theatre that would always hold a special place in her heart, The Citizens. Over the years she’d watched numerous small but enthusiastic companies of eager young actors work with an energy and passion and an utter lack of fear that she never saw elsewhere. Sets were of necessity sparse – she noticed a recurring preference for monochrome - effects minimal, and there was always that feeling that each production was running just half a step ahead of disaster, but somehow the rough edges gave them an honesty and raw purity that was uniquely satisfying. As usual she noticed a particular smell that she couldn’t quite place. She used to like to imagine it was greasepaint, and would add in rare foray into humour that she was the roar of the crowd. Over the years she saw everything there, sometimes with Maisie and Moira, sometimes alone; Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekov, Wilde, and surprising perhaps to those who didn’t know her well, Brecht, Ionesco, Pinter, Osborne and even Orton. She became a member of the theatre and donated as generously as she sensibly could. The Citizens would become an excellent training ground for young aspiring thesps and she’d always feel a sense of motherly pride whenever any of her ‘charges’ made it in London’s West End as actors or directors, or turned up, as they did on a fairly regular basis on television, and occasionally film, and on one glorious night, in Hollywood clutching an Oscar. Her brother stayed single and remained always a good and close friend. Her sisters had married fairly well, Isa for money and Maggie for love. They each had several children who grew up to live lives of quiet success or drama and dysfunction, the usual mix. Maggie and Isa even took up amateur theatre as a hobby and thus in some small way lived out their early dreams. She often went along to watch and had great fun. Maggie looked more like Lucille Ball now than Rita Hayworth but as she was almost as funny that was fine.

Then one rainy afternoon, two and a half years ago George passed away. He did so quietly and discreetly just as he had lived his life. He had dozed off after completing the Herald crossword, and ebbed away in his favourite chair by the fireside. She felt numb and unreal, as nieces and nephews and siblings fussed around arranging the funeral and sorting out the financial stuff, which George had left tidily in order. It was all a bit of a blur. Then one day, around two weeks after the funeral and quite without warning, she’d broken down, thrown herself on her bed and howled and howled without hope of consolation. She knew then how much he missed his companionable presence round the flat, the way he’d bring her cups of tea unasked, get her to sample his latest cake creation, the look of frowning concentration on his face as he’d peer over his newspaper and his spectacles to ask for her help when he got stuck with a crossword clue; his earnest, open enthusiasm as he read out snippets from the newspaper that caught his interest and he felt the need to share with her; his kindness, and caring. And she understood at last how essential he had become to her and that she had grown to love him deeply after all. It had been around this time that her gregarious niece, Isa’s second daughter, had begun to visit. She was a successful lawyer by profession, a partner in a venerable Glasgow firm. She was divorced and her children had gone off to university, so she had a little more time on her hands. In the weeks and months that followed George’s death she appeared more and more often at the door. She fussed around, made sure that she was managing on her own, arranged for a cleaner to come and help out a couple of times a week, and generally became a pleasant and welcome presence. She was naturally warm and friendly, the kind of person you could find yourself confiding in, telling just a little more than you’d intended, she was so eager and warm and encouraging of openness. Then one night when they’d each consumed the last drops of their third glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream that she really only kept for cooking, she found herself telling all. That winter’s night she unburdened all the secret guilt and shame and all the hidden pain and sorrow and lost love on her niece. Well, not quite all. After all she had promised, an unspoken promise, but knew it was there and she always honoured her promises. As she spoke she decided she must be feeling a little light-headed from the sherry, for she became increasingly aware of the sound of the old grandmother clock that stood beside the tall carved wood fireplace. It had been one of her first and favourite antique sale purchases, and that night the ticking seemed somehow louder than usual. No, not just louder. It had a strange attenuated echo, ti-tick, to-tock, whimsy, she knew, but she could almost imagine it straddling time between the then and the now, counting the beats of parallel lives. As she’d talked she’d wondered absently if her niece heard this too. The cosy little room seemed faded and a little fuzzy, as if not quite real. Each quarter hour the clock

would remember to chime obediently, marking the phases of her story. Her niece sat agog, mesmerised, transfixed, eyes a little wider than normal, unnaturally silent, aside from sporadic little involuntary exclamations of empathy. When she’d finally finished her niece got up, cleared her throat and turned away quickly excusing herself to the bathroom. Five minutes later she had returned, thrown open the door, rushed to her aunt and scooped the smaller woman up into her ample bosom and squeezed her tight. The next day was a frosty, bright Saturday. It had been around eight thirty in the morning when the doorbell rang and there was her niece laden with electronic accoutrements, and an air of warm efficient optimism. “It’s so easy now”, she’d cried, swept up by the beguiling notion that she could set things right, “we can find him on the internet!” The way she’d said it, so confident and ebullient, she almost expected her to add, “and then we can ask him round for dinner!” She remembered making tea in her neat square little kitchen and bringing it through to the living room on a tray, taking great care as always these days, matching china cups and tea plates, of course, a larger plate piled with McVities chocolate digestives, and some left over shortbread that she’d found in a tin. She’d sat in her favourite high-backed chair by the fire, opposite George’s, and watched her niece tapping away, fiddling with strange sticks, making calls. The names on the phone and the computer momentarily transported back to childhood and the sweet pungent smell of fruit boiling in the big heavy pot on the stove for her mother’s delicious jam. And as she’d watched she realised she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do this. It had all seemed just a little unreal and absurd, as if all she had needed to do in the end was wait for the twenty-first century to turn up and the huge mess of doubt and anguish and loss and despair would be swept up neatly and tidily in an afternoon. She’d known of course it was never going to be that easy and she’d always feared hope. Hope was a cruel temptress, clad in a scarlet satin gown, beckoning you with an easy smile playing on red painted lips, offering the moon and the stars only to snatch them away again at the very last with barely disguised glee and mocking laugh. Sometimes she felt it would be best never to let her in. But her niece was enthused and full of love and caring and a certainty that she could make things right. How could she possibly make her understand or even begin to explain? She knew that the boulder had been set at the top of the hill and pushed off and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d watched her niece during this period in a kind of semi-detached haze, as if a veil of gauze had enshrouded her and separated her from the now. She’d always been terrified of becoming forgetful but somewhere deep within her now she almost longed for the peace of it. First her niece had found the names of her son’s adoptive parents, along with the first revelation that they’d emigrated to the United States in 1947. How strange that he should in some way fulfil his part of her little hopeful dream. Chicago, Illinois. The “Windy City” she’d added silently, well at least according to Doris Day.

She wondered hopelessly what his life had been like there and prayed that it had been the best that it could be. Still, it was surreal and she struggled to imagine the reality of him. In her mind, despite the passage of time, he’d always been that tiny warm bundle. Over the next few evenings running into weeks little pieces of the puzzle began to take shape. The family had moved to Wisconsin, when he was twelve, no reason given. He’d got married there in 1972 and moved to New Jersey. But no clue as to where he was now. Her niece had explained to her about these absurd internet social groups with peculiar names like My Face that twenty-first century people felt the need to join, and live their lives in a goldfish bowl; she couldn’t for the life of her fathom why. But he wasn’t on any of them. Was he even alive? “Ten minutes!” her niece nudged her awake. “Ten minutes”, her face by now beetroot red. She’d wondered at the names of all these American states. Now, who was it? Yes, Perry Como, his voice was so relaxed, sleepy almost. She remembered he had lovely eyes. Italian. She hoped he wasn’t one of these crooners who’d ended up with horses heads in their beds. What was it he’d sung? She used to hear it on the radio on the old BBC Light Programme, and she’d joined in as she dusted the ornaments. Clever little song. What did Delaware, boys? What did Delaware? She wore a brand New Jersey. She wore a brand new jersey… It was the thing she remembered about him, the man in the kitchen with George. She’d come in from shopping one day and there he was. Wearing a brand new pale blue v-neck jersey over a white shirt. Matched his eyes, the jersey, not the shirt. He was good looking, shock of messy fair hair, pleasant, sudden, dimpled smile. She’d known George had not expected her back from the shops so soon. However he’d recovered quickly, and asked her to join them at the little kitchen table. Conversation over teacups and tablet had been light and polite and unreal. They talked about all sorts but she still recalled the sudden shock, at something said at one particular point in the conversation, she couldn’t remember what, but it had hit her with the force of a truck. They’d known each other for years. He had a name, Colin, and after that strange little meeting he’d appear on occasion. No explanations, usually only briefly. They would be on their way out. Colin’s place, she presumed. When a few months later she’d brought home Tony from the Citizens George had been equally pleasant and accommodating. And again later in later years

with Stuart, the avid antiques collector. Yes, she and George had enjoyed a polite, discreet unspoken arrangement, so she supposed things had worked out pretty well for them in the end. I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine. Colin had been a lost and forlorn, almost ghostly presence at the funeral. She went up to him where he stood, silent, a little apart. His hair had turned to silver grey, his face old, etched deep with grief, and she’d grasped his hands tight, hugged him briefly but firmly, and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. If her family wondered at the nice little sum George had left Colin in his will, they didn’t say. After a while her niece had stopped bringing her computer round to the house on visits. The trail had gone cold and Hope was trailing quietly away, casting occasional derisive glances over her shoulder. Then two weeks later. “I’ve found him!” Her niece had yelled it down the telephone. Charles Frederick Waverley. Still in New Jersey. She wondered absently if they called him Chuck. She couldn’t quite imagine having a son called Chuck. She’d chosen the name Charles when he’d been born, and she was glad that they’d kept it, but she had always been her Charlie. Her Charlie! Then two days later – the hammer blow. Her niece had sat her down quietly and had held her hands as she explained eyes bright with barely suppressed tears, that her beloved son didn’t want to see her. His adoptive mother was still alive but frail. He felt it would be a betrayal; he couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt her. The thing that crushed her most was the realisation that her own son thought of her as a stranger from a far off land, making waves in a still pond, disturbing the pattern of their lives. Seemingly an aunt had called her niece a day or two later warning her off in a pretty nasty way. It all got very messy and fraught. Pandora’s box. They’d given up and Hope was gone, as expected, slamming the door shut behind her. Then just three weeks ago her niece had telephoned excitedly about an email she’d

received from Fred, Charles’s son. He was bringing his family over to Europe on vacation and would really like to find his relations, discover his Scottish roots, meet Grandma. She’d wondered at the sound of a name for herself that she’d never ever expected to hear. Grandma. She said it out loud to herself as if trying it on for size. Now people were tumbling out into the arrivals hall. She felt engulfed, almost suffocated, slightly panicked by the sudden mass of humanity. Many laden with bags with names from dreams, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany she recognised, although there were many others she didn’t. Scottish people hopping over to New York to take advantage of a two dollar pound. Groups of men in polo shirts and checked caps trailing golf clubs, on their way to St Andrews, the ‘Home of Golf’ presumably, business men in slightly crumpled suits, and sticky shirts, walking fast, places to be. Families. Americans arriving in Scotland for the first time, looking around, uncertain. A pleasant couple trailing four little blond children and copious amounts of luggage, a family of giants, mother, father, two teenage boys. She wondered in passing how tall the boys would be when they stopped growing as they’d had already almost reached their father. An African American family, side by side, mother grasping a toddler, his soft face streaked with the tracks of recent tears, stubbornly barefoot. Slightly fraught mother, clutching small yellow socks and blue shoes in the hand that held him, resignedly hauling the rest of his toddler luggage over her free shoulder, looking about. Beside them, the tall good-looking dad pushing an empty stroller, two little girls walking smartly, sometimes half skipping beside him, so alike they could be twins. Wearing citrus sundresses, perfect against their dark skin, one lime, one orange, matching ribbons in their black curls. She hoped they’d brought something warmer for the evening; early summer nights in May could be cold in Glasgow. Each girl carried airline colouring books and crayons, one a dishevelled doll and a well-thumbed storybook, the other a large furry, honey coloured teddy. The happy detritus of childhood. The place was so crowded she lost sight of them as a ginger haired man and his small dark haired wife came right up to her then veered away. The African American family suddenly hove into view again. She half raised herself from her seat to see everything better. They were close now coming towards her, arms beginning to stretch out. Then as if in response to some silent signal they all drew aside.

There he stood. Tall, upright, and broad shouldered, looking fit and vigorous in late middle age. Some natural black flecking the iron grey of his hair. His dark handsome features etched in a fine boned dignity, his gaze steady. Slightly questioning. Silence. The thronging concourse was suddenly, impossibly hushed, muffled as a snowy village in the dawn. She wondered at the silence. How could it be? Then she felt the sun come out as she realised what it was. The screaming had stopped. His face. She looked at his face as if she could never get enough of looking, deep tawny shades, chiselled dark tones, soft full lips. Like his father. Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, Till I come marching home. Her niece helping her up, beaming through tears, her new family encouraging her with friendly, welcoming faces. And his eyes, deep, liquid, melting chocolate brown. Eyes the colour of Tuesday. She moved towards him as he stepped towards her, her love, her joy, her life. “Mom?”

Louise Angus 2009