The Green Lady thought ye had congenital diarrhoea!
Dont be disgusting.
Her father laughed. So dont get on your high horse, that’s all I’m saying.
Isobel shook her head.
Several moments passed. Then he said, It’s actually just your mother I’m thinking of.
Dad. .
Naw but I am.
I just dont want to be a hypocrite, she said, turning to face him.
But ye wouldni be being a hypocrite ye would just be being a mother, and a daughter. Isobel I mean look hen dont get me wrong on this, I couldni care one way or the other — even although I says that about the basic notion of the thing, I dont really care, no really. He shifted on his seat, shaking his head: And as far as the church goes. . ye know me better than that, when it comes to the church and hypocrites, it’s just like Rabbie Burns said it was. He paused, gazing at her. It’s your mother I’m thinking about.
Isobel sighed.
It is, it’s no me.
Dad, I just wish you wouldni go on about it.
Ho — I didni know that’s what I was doing!
We’ve done enough talking on the subject.
He nodded, studying the label on the beer can. He said: It’s just with you being on your own now, I mean, it was his idea — about no getting the wean baptised — in the first place; when it was born I’m talking about, it was his idea, no yours.
Dad, it doesni matter whose idea it was, mine or his; it doesni matter. I’m just no getting it baptised and that’s that.
Fair enough, it just strikes me as a wee bit selfish.
She stubbed out the cigarette.
I dont mean selfish. .
She stared at him for a moment, then leant her elbows on the window-sill and gave her attention to the street below.
Eventually he called: By the way hen, did I tell ye, they’re trying to get me to stand for re-election again. I telt them naw but they’ll no listen.
Oh well you’ve just got to insist.
I know. I’m gonni. Cause I just dont have time. Me and your mother are supposed to be doing up the house at the end of April. She’s wanting the front room wallpapered and she’s talking about getting new points put in as well! So I mean we’ll be upside down here, I’ll no have time for anything hardly.
When is it?
What?
The election.
Five weeks.
You’ll just have to tell them then wont ye.
I’m going to. I mean God love us it’s high time some of these young yins got into the act. They need a good bloody shake-up. See when I was that age! I mean ye had to go cloak-and-dagger ye know, even just to pay your dues. If the management found out you were in the union you would’ve been out the bloody door, pronto. No negotiating table then ye know. They’d have bloody shot us if they could’ve got away with it!
Isobel made no answer. She was still peering out the window.
Honest hen they would’ve. That’s what like they were. I’m talking about back when I started out in the job, when some of us were trying to get things organised. He continued gazing at her; he raised the can of export to his mouth and after a pause he drank from it. He dried his lips on the cuff of his shirt-sleeve, and frowned at her: You listening?
Yeh.
Ye sure? He smiled.
Och dad I was just away thinking.
He nodded.
Och. . I was just remembering Saturday mornings. I used to hate them. She smiled.
You used to hate them?
Isobel turned to him. Because I always used to think something bad had happened to mum, an accident, I could never stop myself thinking about it and it was awful because I would think too that just me thinking about it might make it happen. Tempting fate, ye know. And she was going to get taken into hospital. On her way back from town with the messages, her with all these enormous shopping bags. I was always expecting to hear the siren and then the ambulance would come hurtling round the corner, bringing her in it. . Isobel looked at him and smiled. I mean when I was wee dad.
Oh aye.
That corner of the street along there, when you stare and stare and stare, if you’re waiting for somebody. .
Isobel turned away from her father. He could only see the back of her head. He glanced at the baby who had managed to get the ornamental brass poker from where it was kept by the side of the tiled fireplace. He stared down at him for a few moments, then shrugged, When you’re wee. .
Isobel said: I used to watch out for you as well. Especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when you were working late.
I mind that. . aye.
She stared out the window.
Listen hen dont get me wrong, I worry like hell about your mother as well but I know she’ll be here sooner or later I mean tempting fate like ye says, I think you’re better just showing a wee bit of patience, a wee bit of patience. He gestured with the beer can: Come away from the window.
She turned her head sharply, but did as she was told. She got her handbag from where she had left it beneath the coffee table and she snapped it open, took out her cigarettes.
Her father sniffed. Ye angry?
No dad, I’m no angry; I just wish you would remember I’m an adult sometimes.
He nodded. Sorry.
Putting the cigarette packet down on the table she quickly took the poker from the boy’s hands, she lifted him upwards, chuckling, her eyes closed, gently rubbing her forehead in his face; and she sat down on the couch, sitting him on her lap. Her gaze went to the table and the cigarette packet.
Want your fags? he said.
No.
Ye sure?
Yeh.
Ye still angry?
No.
Good.
She sighed. I’m just a bit worried.
There’s no need to be. There isni. You know your mother, she’ll have met somebody. She’ll be gabbing away. She’ll have forgot the time. Ye know the way she goes hen I mean sometimes I’m feart to let her out the house in case she canni find her way home again! He chuckled, then he groaned. That’s me making it worse eh!
She looked at him. His forehead had creased as if he was anticipating a smile from her; she smiled.
Sarah Crosbie
The big house was standing empty for years before she came back. She came from America. But according to the newspaperman she had owned the house long long before. The big house stood at the end of the street, less than a hundred yards from the river. There was not much the people in the street could tell him. The old woman never spoke to them at all. She had always lived alone surrounded by cats and dogs. Sarah Crosbie. It turned out that the house had been there about two hundred years. This bit of the river had been a ford at one time. The foundations were much older than the rest of the building. Somebody called Rankine had rebuilt it and the date 1733 was discovered above a side door at the back. This Rankine was famous. The newspaperman was looking for people called Rankine to see if they were related. He thought the old woman might have been a descendant. But nobody knew. People kept away from the big house. If a neighbour or somebody ever had to go to her door she always kept them waiting on the front step. When the McDonnell Murders were going on back in the ’20s a group of locals barged their way inside the big house door. They found a body behind a bricked-up chimney-piece down in the basement. A man’s body, dead for many years. Nobody knew a thing about it and neither did the old woman. She had not been in the place long at the time. The police thought he might have died from natural causes and judging by the tatters of clothes he could have been a building worker or something.
When she went into hospital the newspaperman tried to gain entrance to the big house but he was refused on certain grounds. Workmen arrived the next day and they barred the place up.
It was eighteen months ago she turned up at the police office. She was in a bad state. She told them people were in her house, they had done things to her. But she would not say what things. Policemen returned to the big house with her but saw nothing suspicious. Next day a health-visitor called on her and she was admitted later on to the geriatric ward at Gartnavel Royal. A few women from the street took a bunch of flowers up to her but she just stared at the ceiling for the whole visiting hour. And it was after this the newspaperman began coming around. He goes to see her in hospital as well once or twice.