Fergus Lamont Page 3

  ‘You’re far too young,’ she said.

  She halted and put a hand to her side. We were now climbing the long steep brae up to my grandfather’s cottage. Behind a barrier of sleepers was the railway line. I put my eye to a hole in a sleeper. The lines glittered in the sun. They were as hard as my grandfather’s mouth. I remembered putting a ha’penny on the line in the hope the train would flatten it into a penny; it had been ruined.

  Suddenly I noticed three boys. They were trying to catch butterflies. One of them was Jim Blanie. He moved awkwardly. This wasn’t because the bank was steep and the grass long and the wild-rose bushes thorny. It was because he had a boil high up on his leg. He always had boils.

  I watched him as, cautiously, he crept forward to some gowans. There must have been a butterfly resting on one of them. In my imagination I smelled the grass, felt my wrists and knees smarting from scratches, and was deliciously afraid lest a train or a policeman should come. I admired the butterfly’s yellowish wings with the black dots. For a few moments I was a butterfly myself, about to be seized between enormous fingers.

  I was both disappointed and relieved when Jim made his pounce and the butterfly rose just in time to escape. I was very happily aware that it was more beautiful twinkling away in the sunshine than it would have been lying crumpled on Jim’s sweaty palm.

  My mother moved on. I wanted to grumble that I was tired, that I had the barrow to push, that the kilt made my legs feel funny and weak, and that it was no good hurrying for my grandfather wouldn’t be home yet and the cottage would be shut up. But I knew that if everybody else was against her, except Jock and Peggy, I would be for her, whatever happened.

  Besides, it was now much more pleasant than among the tenements. Sheep bleated at us from one field, cows mooed at us from another, and larks sang down to us from the sky. On the firth a ship sounded its horn. These were all friendly, reassuring sounds. If I turned my head I could see, beyond the blue firth, the hills of Dunbartonshire and Argyll. They cheered me up, perhaps because on Sundays and holidays, when there was not so much smoke, I could see them from the window of the room where I slept.

  My grandfather’s cottage, called ‘Siloam’, was one of a row at the side of the road. It had roses in the front garden, but it was the garden at the back I liked best; this looked on to a large green field with whin bushes scattered about like golden sheep. The gate was made of iron and opened with a noise like a corncrake. I hoped my mother realised I should need help to get the barrow up the stone steps. When I turned to look at her she was shaking her head, although I hadn’t asked her yet. She was paler than ever: there was sweat on her brow. Slowly I understood that what she was denying or rejecting had nothing to do with helping me with my barrow.

  She knew this cottage better than I did. I had been told she used to visit it with me when I was a baby in my pram. My grandfather must have helped her up the steps with the pram.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ I asked, after a polite interval.

  ‘Do you think I should, Fergie? I haven’t got permission, you see.’

  When I brought my friends here, I gave them permission; but this was different. I felt baffled.

  A bumble-bee hummed near. Perhaps taking my kilt for a bed of flowers, it seemed to be thinking of landing on it. I knew now why girls were always afraid of things like bees and mice going up their skirts. I shuddered as I thought how painful it would be if my pintle was stung.

  ‘It’ll be a’ right,’ I muttered.

  ‘Will it, Fergie?’

  ‘Aye. You can sit in the gairden at the back. There’s a seat there.’ I decided not to mention it was made by John Lamont. But perhaps she knew. She was not a stranger. She was somebody returned.

  ‘There’d be no harm in me doing that, would there?’

  She came in the gate, and helped me lift the barrow up the steps. I approved of the careful way she did it. No dung was spilled.

  I led the way round the house. To my relief the garden looked the same as always. I seemed to have been dreading some ominous change in it. I pointed out the seat to her. Then I couped the dung on to the compost heap. I smacked my hands together, as workmen did when the job was done.

  There was, though, ahead of me, another job, a lot harder. I had to persuade my grandfather not to send my mother away. I didn’t know yet how I was going to do it, but at least I could tell him she was not a Catholic. It seemed to me no two people had less in common than my grandfather and Mrs Grier. What then could my mother have done to have made them both hate her?

  Often, when I couldn’t be bothered doing something I didn’t want to do or was afraid I couldn’t do, I pleaded, with a whimper in my voice, that I was too wee, too young. Now this excuse was no good: there was no one to offer it to. As I flicked a fly off a rose-petal, I felt very sorry for myself.

  I was whistling a sad tune as I went over to where my mother was seated, on the seat my father made.

  She had taken off her shoes and hat. ‘You’re a rare wee whistler. What tune’s that?’

  I could not tell her it was Aunt Bella’s favourite. She might have thought I was being disloyal.

  (It was Burns’s ‘Aye waukin’ o,’ that beautiful, haunting love-song. When Aunt Bella sang it, or ‘soothed’ it rather, she was not thinking of Uncle Tam, who should have been her ‘dearie’; she was thinking of her two dead children.)

  On the back of the seat were carved roses. I sat beside her. I followed her example and shut my eyes.

  Another ship sounded its horn. The echoes were sonorous and exciting. It was saying goodbye. I felt, obscurely, that it represented trust and interdependence.

  ‘Where’s she bound for, do you think?’ asked my mother.

  ‘America, maybe.’

  ‘Do you know what I wish, Fergie? I wish you and me were on that ship, sailing away.’

  I decided not to mention that I was once on a ship that sailed to Rothesay and back. We ought not to have been talking about ships. We should have been talking about what we were going to say to my grandfather.

  But she seemed to want to sleep. Her eyes were still shut. She made little sleepy grunts. Her head kept falling forward. A lock of her hair was loosened.

  I kept very still and quiet.

  A butterfly twinkled past. I wondered if it was the one Jim Blanie tried to catch. I made a vow never to catch butterflies again. I knew I would not keep it.

  I tried hard not to feel impatient or restless or itchy. Pretending I was in school, I folded my arms and pressed my lips tightly together. I scarcely breathed.

  After a long time—it was only three minutes really— I decided to go round to the front of the house to see if my grandfather was coming. I slid off the seat, and tiptoed away, as best I could, for the path was made of white chuckies.

  I sat on the doorstep, in the shade, with my kilt tucked under in the way I’d seen girls do. The stone was cold on my legs. There was no sign of my grandfather coming up the road. He would be easy to see, for he always dressed in black, except for his collar.

  Old Mrs Pollock came slowly down the road, carrying a shopping-bag. She was a neighbour of my grandfather’s. She talked to her feet as if they were a dog; they must have been painful or something. I kept very still, for I didn’t want her to see me. She would have been sure to ask me to go down to the shop for her. I felt that I must be here when my grandfather came.

  At last I got tired of watching. When I got back to my mother she was still sleeping. I felt it was a little bit unfair.

  I had another four spells of sitting on the doorstep, on the look-out.

  Then I saw him. I was not surprised he had his bowler hat on his head, though the sun was still warm. He did not approve of men walking in the street bareheaded. The number of things he did not approve of was very impressive. I counted some of them on my fingers: Catholics, comics, pubs, theatres, high-heeled shoes, cigarettes; and on Sundays everything except going to church and Sunday school. I didn’t know what his a
ttitude was to kilts, but I suspected he disapproved of them, though he was born in the Hebrides and could speak Gaelic.

  I prayed that my mother would not appear before I had a chance to plead with him on her behalf. I still didn’t know what I was going to say.

  Deep in thought, he had his hand on the latch of the gate before he noticed me. I was now standing up, with my legs apart, in the way quoiters do to give them good balance. I felt I needed good balance, even if I was not going to throw a quoit.

  He smiled and frowned at the same time: the smile was for me, the frown for my kilt.

  ‘Well, Fergus, it’s yourself. This is a pleasant surprise.’

  Unlike all of us born and brought up in Gantock he spoke pure English. He said ‘well’ instead of ‘weel’ and ‘yourself instead of ‘yoursel’.

  I barred his way.

  ‘I brought you some dung.’

  ‘That was very kind of you, Fergus. My leeks will be the better of it.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got on a kilt.’

  ‘I’ve been admiring it. It’s not the Lamont tartan, though, or the McGilvray.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘My mither bought it for me. She’s back, you ken. Oot o’ Lumhat Broon’s. She’s roon’ the back in the gairden. I think she’s asleep.’

  I had cast a spell. For the next twenty seconds nothing in the whole world moved: I had brought everything to a standstill. My grandfather was at the centre of this terrifying immobility. Even his beard did not move in the breeze.

  I began to feel I was shrinking. In a minute I’d be smaller than a bee.

  ‘She’s come to see you,’ I whispered, in a voice suitable to my tininess. ‘She’s sorry. I think she’s come to say she’s sorry. If you think she’s a Catholic, weel, she’s no’.’

  He looked gigantic. His face covered the sky. His bowler hat was as big as a tar boiler. His voice was like thunder.

  ‘Come by yourself, Fergus, and you’ll always be welcome.’

  Gently but irresistibly, he pushed me aside. He unlocked the front door while I gazed on indignantly. I couldn’t believe he would go in and shut me out. But he did. When I crept forward and tried the door I found it locked. I listened with my ear to the keyhole, but I heard nothing. I imagined him on his knees on the blue carpet in the living-room, praying. My grandmother in the photograph on the wall smiled down at him. I had been told she too had red hair, like my mother and me.

  I had myself knelt on that carpet beside him, pretending to pray. He would be explaining to God why he refused to forgive my mother and welcome her back. I wished he would explain to me.

  I was aware that there was something terribly wrong in his rejection of my mother, who was also his daughter. It was a great burden on me. I felt I hadn’t enough strength left to go and tell my mother the bad news.

  Late that night, while I lay asleep and all the lavatories in the building were empty, with their pans leaking and their cisterns sighing, my mother went down the stairs again, by herself.

  In the kitchen John Lamont, hearing her go out so quietly, lay on for another hour or so, telling himself he had no right to follow her. But he became so anxious that he had to go through to see if she had taken her suitcase with her.

  She had not. Relieved a little, he thought she must have gone out to walk in the dark empty streets, trying to make up her mind whether she should stay or go away again, this time for good. Again he felt he had no right to interfere. So he went back to bed and without meaning to fell asleep. He had been at work that day and was tired. It was six o’clock when he awoke. She had not returned.

  It was I who found the envelope she had left. Needing comfort I suppose, he awoke me. Still half-asleep, I heard something crackle under my pillow. He took it from me, but not before I had seen my name, Fergus, written on it in pencil. Inside there was no letter, just a small photograph. John Lamont stared at this, sadly and desperately. Once he even glanced at me with what looked like anger or accusation. I was still only half-awake, and not altogether sure that my mother really had been there. I felt confused therefore, and frightened. Having no one else to blame, I blamed him: just as he seemed to be blaming me.

  Usually so indulgent, he absolutely refused to let me see the photograph. He shoved it into the pocket of his working jacket, as if it was like the one Jock Dempster had, of a woman with no clothes on. I knew it couldn’t be that.

  When I whimpered that it was really mine, my mother had meant it for me, he told me harshly not to be a baby. When I swithered whether to wear the kilt or breeks he lost patience and decided for me; that was why, on that most difficult day of my life, I wore breeks.

  He left the key in the lock, in case my mother should come back. Going down the stairs, I reminded him that we hadn’t cleaned out Rob Roy’s cage and put fresh seed in. He snapped that the bird wouldn’t starve. I was amazed. Usually he liked cleaning out the cage. He and Rob Roy whistled together, making me jealous. Both of them were better whistlers than I.

  On our way to Aunt Bella’s he looked back a dozen times, as if he hoped my mother was behind us.

  Aunt Bella and Uncle Tam lived up a close in Kirn Street. Their tenement was older and more dilapidated than ours. The people who lived here thought themselves superior to those who lived in Davidson’s Vennel, and in their hearts admitted that they in their turn were inferior to those who lived in Lomond Street; while the inhabitants of Lomond Street accepted that they were not quite on the same level as the inhabitants of Nelson Street, where the closes were tiled and the lavatories inside.

  I had once overheard a man at the street corner remark to his mates after Aunt Bella, or Mrs Pringle as she was to them, had passed, that when she was a young girl, Bella Lamont, she had had the finest pair of diddies in the town. Another had said she still had, if you took a good look. Still another had said it was a pity she was so unbonny. A fourth had suggested she would be bonny enough if she would just smile. And a fifth had ended the conversation by reminding them she hadn’t much to smile at, two weans that hadn’t lived longer than a week.

  She answered the door in a thin nightgown. Her bosoms, which I couldn’t help looking at, were big and round like balloons, but heavy too, as if filled with water, or milk. She had her black hair in cloth curlers. Her face was screwed up in its usual scowl.

  Putting on a coat, she took command of the situation. She was very capable. Her neighbours wondered how she could keep her house so well furnished, and herself so well dressed, and twenty pigeons so well fed, on the pay of a bricklayer’s labourer.

  As she talked, she set the table for breakfast.

  Of course you’ll go to your work,’ she said, to her brother. ’Nae sense in losing a day’s pay, or running the risk o’ losing your job. She’s gone for good this time.’

  ‘She’s left her case.’

  ‘She’ll send for it. Did you think madam was going to cairry her ain case? You forget she’s used to servants.’

  ‘Carefu’, Bella. Fergie’s here.’

  I was seated on a stool in a corner. Though I had more urgent questions to ask than any of them, I had to keep quiet, otherwise I’d be banished through to the room.

  She turned to me. ‘Whit happened at your grandfaither’s yesterday?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘John Lamont, are you going to let him talk to me like that?’

  ‘He doesnae want to talk aboot it. I don’t blame him. Some Christian, turning his back on his ain daughter.’

  ‘So you’re taking her side against Mr McGilvray?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s the one maistly to blame.’

  ‘Mair to blame than her? Is that whit you’re saying?’

  ‘You ken whit I mean.’

  ‘I ken this, you were the one eager to mairry her. You became a Christian yoursel’, if you remember.’

  Then, with glances at me, they decided to say no more, until I was out of the way. It wasn’t the first time a conversation like this had been cut short to keep me
from learning something about my mother.

  A child’s cunning is not entirely instinctive. Even if he has been only three years in the world he is bound to know some of its ways. I was seven. I knew the value of persistence as a tactic, if one’s cause was good.

  ‘I want to see the photie,’ I muttered. ‘It’s mine. It was under my pillow. It’s got my name on it.’

  Knowing she was in the wrong, Aunt Bella tried bluster. ‘Did you hear that? His pillow. His name. John Lamont, I’m sorry to tell you that fellow’s going to cause you mony a sair hert. Impudence is in his bluid.’

  My Uncle Tam always kept out of the way and let others do the talking. Even if the conversation was about pigeons, he wouldn’t say much. He had tousled fair hair and a cheerful grin: too cheerful, in some people’s opinion, for I had once heard Mrs Grier say he was only ninepence to the shilling, by which she meant some of his wits were missing.

  ‘Naebody can help the way he’s born,’ he said.

  That must be so, Tam Pringle,ʾ saidsaid his wife. Otherwise you’d shairly be a lot smarter than you are.’

  He grinned happily at the insult, and winked at me.

  ‘Why shouldnae he see the photie?’ muttered John Lamont. ‘He’ll hae to be told one day. I promised.’

  I piped up: ‘What hae I to be told?’

  Aunt Bella answered in a flash. ‘That as soon as the shop’s open you’ve to go and get me a quarter stone of tatties.’

  I was baffled. It was another triumph for adult cunning.

  Like a commander, Aunt Bella issued us our orders for the day. At the shipyard my father was to make it clear to his workmates he wanted no inquiries, especially from those who professed sympathy: he must therefore show on his face a lot more dourness and pride than he usually did. Uncle Tam was told to remember he got paid for humphing bricks, not for talking about Nancy McGilvray. As for me, first I was to do her shopping, then I was to go out and play with my friends as usual. If they, or their nosy mothers, did any speiring I was to pretend I was too wee to know anything: I was very good at that.