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 dog-
eared 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 bright-
eyed, 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 ill-
defined 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, mid-
brown 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