And the Land Lay Still (25 page)

Liz was almost away, he could feel her breathing change as she went. He loved that. He was thirty, with a wife and son, and another bairn on the way. This was his second life. No, his third. First there was growing up in Drumkirk, then the war, now this. The war was over but it would always be there, the big mad moment of all their lives. Never again. Tam and Wullie Byres might be dour and tight-fisted but he’d thole them and just about anything for peace. Yet when he thought of being the head of a family it made him tremble, a different fear from what he’d experienced in the war. And it was a different courage he needed to be a good husband and father.

The country had changed and it needed to go on changing. The Labour government was still there, but only just. At the election in February its majority had been cut to single figures, and it had watered down or abandoned its plans for taking more key industries into public ownership. People were tired of austerity and blamed it on the government. Potatoes, bread and jam were no longer rationed but in the run-up to the election there’d still been Chads appearing on the sides of lorries and derelict buildings: ‘Wot? No bacon?’ ‘Wot? No eggs?’ And then Tate & Lyle, fighting the threat of nationalisation, had invented Mr Cube, a cartoon sugar lump with legs who ranted against the perils of socialism. Mr Cube was everywhere, on sugar packs, Tate & Lyle-designed ration-book holders, newspaper ads, leaflets, posters. ‘TATE not STATE’ he girned, striking out the S with relish. One day Liz had come home with a set of five Mr Cube dice they were giving away at Reid’s the grocer’s. Each die had a picture of Mr Cube on one face and the letters S, T, A, t and E on the others. If you rolled Mr Cube and T-A-t-E you won. Your reward was free enterprise. If you rolled S-T-A-t-E you lost, a victim of government controls. Liz thought it was funny, clever even. Don wanted to crush the dice beneath his heel. Aye, and no doubt that was how the sugar barons expected a socialist to behave.

Six months on, things were sliding towards exhaustion. Events in Korea had started an urgent argument within the Labour Party: guns versus butter. It seemed a lot more than five years since the landslide victory of 1945. A lot more than that since the war.

He remembered reading the Beveridge Report in the desert after El Alamein, a copy that was passed from man to man till it was in tatters. It was written in heavy, booming language that gave it seriousness and weight. To slay the five giants of Want, Sickness, Squalor, Ignorance and Idleness – it was like a fairy tale but there was something solid and noble and chivalrous about it. The soldiers – even many of the officers – saw it as the natural outcome of the war. What were they fighting for if not for a decent life for everybody, from the cradle to the grave?
Let Us Face the Future
– that was the title of Labour’s manifesto in the General Election of 1945, and the future was contained in Beveridge. Churchill had grumbled dire warnings about socialist totalitarianism but what else was he going to say? However much you respected him as a war leader, Churchill
was an old reactionary. And Attlee and Morrison and Bevan and Bevin and the rest of them had done a good job, Don reckoned. The things that had been put in place in the last five years – National Insurance, pensions, the Health Service – these were changes for the good, they made ordinary people’s lives better, safer, happier and longer. Any government that tried to undo them, Don believed, would risk the wrath of the people. By the time the Tories regained power, as they would, families like his were going to be in a better situation than they’d ever been. Even Churchill wouldn’t dare turn the clock back.

The bairn inside Liz kicked again, and Don wondered who they would be bringing into the world, and what the world would be like when the new bairn was the age they were. And if the world would still be around.

§

‘It’s the age of new nations,’ Jack Gordon said. He ran a finger up the side of his glass, leaving a clear line through the condensation, and Don thought of sweat and jungle heat. ‘India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma. The Africans’ll not be far behind. The West Indians. Nobody can stop it. You just have to enable it.’

‘Which is what the government’s been daein. I agree wi ye, make it as smooth as ye can. The less trouble the better. But dinna hand places ower tae madmen and gangsters.’

Don was thinking of the Middle East. A right mess. Aye, the Jews deserved a home of their own after what had happened to them, but did they have to set off bombs and lynch British soldiers and treat the Palestinians like dog-dirt to achieve it? It made you despair. Partition in India had been the same. The Empire was over, or soon would be, and glad he’d be to see the back of it. But as the British withdrew from the world voids opened up that were being filled with corruption and hatred and violence. No doubt it had always been like that but had folk not had enough? It seemed they hadn’t.

‘New nations and old ones,’ Jack said. ‘Scotland would have had Home Rule thirty-five years ago, but the First World War happened. There was a Bill that reached its second reading in the House of Commons in August 1914. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ Don said. ‘Afore my time.’

‘August 1914,’ Jack said. ‘How’s that for bad timing? And then in the 1920s there were more Bills, but most of the politicians didn’t have the stomach for it by then. And the Irish situation scared people. They were frightened of a bloodbath. But we’ll be getting in the queue soon. No thanks to your Labour Party though. Nothing about Home Rule in their manifesto this year. They think it’s a dead issue. Well, it is. Full-blown independence is the thing.’

‘Canna see there’s much appetite for that,’ Don said. ‘Why would ye go doon that road, after all we’ve been through thegither? Why are you sae keen on independence?’

‘I love my country,’ Jack said. ‘It’s what kept me alive. I’ve told you that.’

Don felt uneasy.
Love your country
, what did it mean? You could love a woman, your bairns, but a country? Scotland was all right but it was nothing special. The Germans had loved the Fatherland, the Japanese had worshipped their Emperor. He said, ‘Nationalism’s what’s done this tae ye, Jack. You of all people dinna need mair o that.’

‘Done what to me?’

‘Landed ye in that hellhole for three years. Nearly bloody killed ye.’

‘I’m all right, though,’ Jack said. ‘I came through it. Survived. Thousands didn’t, but I did. Scotland saved me. Don’t you think I owe the place something? Scottish nationalism’s different,’ he went on. ‘It’s not about conquest or oppression. It’s about freeing ourselves. We’re not going to invade anybody, we just want what’s ours. Our own country.’

‘A poor country it would be, on its ain,’ Don said. ‘Kirk ministers running local cooncils and no enough money tae dae it wi. We canna just cut oorsels aff frae England.’

‘You’ve swallowed the propaganda,’ Jack said. ‘That’s what they want us to believe, that we can’t stand on our own feet. They tricked us into believing it in 1707, and it’s been the same ever since. Bought and sold for English gold. Burns was right about that.’

‘He was a poet, no a politician,’ Don said. ‘There’s been a few changes since then, Jack. The Industrial Revolution. One man, one vote. Votes for women. Socialism. The border now is between capital and labour. Ye’re living in the past. Ye’ll be wearing a kilt next.’

‘Nothing wrong with a kilt,’ Jack said.

‘Och, man! I’ve never seen
you
in one. Aw that Harry Lauder cairry-on? Made us a laughing stock.’

‘That was the intention, I think,’ Jack said drily.

‘I dinna miss it,’ Don said. ‘Or him.’

Back in February the old comedian had died, eighty years old, and there had been an outpouring of ‘national grief’ that had made Don boil with frustration. He’d never seen the appeal of Lauder. Aye, fine, the tunes were good enough if you liked that kind of thing, cheery and light, but all that hirpling about with a knobbly stick, dressed up like a tartan doll and making cracks about his own meanness, Don couldn’t thole it. Liz and he had been at the pictures to see
The Blue Lamp
– a rare night out, with a neighbour in to watch Billy – and they’d seen the funeral on Pathé News with the headline ‘Sir Harry Comes to the End of the Road’ and footage of thousands lining the route from Lauder Ha’ to Hamilton, the cortège of black cars moving below a skyline of factory lums and the town gasometer. There was a wreath from Buckingham Palace and another from Mr and Mrs Churchill. If you believed the commentary all of Scotland was awash with tears. Not Don! The thought of Lauder cavorting on stage still aggravated him.

‘The only person a kilt looks good on,’ Don said, ‘is a Scottish soldier.’

‘Cannon fodder,’ Jack said. ‘That’s what the Scottish soldier is and always has been. Cannon fodder for English wars.’

‘No, no, Jack, I’m no haein that,’ Don said. ‘
We
weren’t cannon fodder and it wasna an English war. It was a war against fascism, against brute force and evil. You should ken that better than maist.’

‘What I’m saying,’ Jack said, ‘is that it’s time we stood up for ourselves for a change. Or soon there won’t be anything Scottish about us.’

‘Speak for yersel,’ Don said, growing angry. ‘I’m as Scottish as the next man. I’m nothing
but
Scottish, but I dinna need tae wrap masel in a kilt or play the bagpipes tae prove it.’

‘So you wrap yourself in the red, white and blue of the Union instead,’ said Jack.

‘No I dinna. I’m against
ony
kind of nationalism.
That’s
the propaganda, the nonsense that sends young men aff tae fight other men they’ve never even heard o, that has them re-fighting battles frae centuries ago. I’m opposed tae that.’

His voice had become raised. The barman went by them. ‘Steady
on, gents,’ he said. Jack nodded at him, then carried on in his quiet, insistent way.

‘Yet you support independence for India, Burma, Sudan, Ghana. Every country but your own. Why? What’s different about us?’

‘We dinna need it,’ Don said, dropping the volume. ‘Naebody’s oppressing us. Naebody’s haudin us back, or haudin us doon.’

‘No?’ said Jack. ‘Think about it. Where was the worst unemployment in the ’30s? Who sent the most soldiers to the trenches in the First World War and who lost more of them than anybody? Cannon fodder. One in four didn’t come home, think about that. Whose young women were commandeered during the last war and forced to work in English factories hundreds of miles from home? Why are the Highlands so destitute? Why does Glasgow have the worst slums in Europe? Why is Scotland the only European country except Portugal where TB’s on the increase? Why do more people emigrate from Scotland than any other part of Great Britain? Half a million of our youngest and strongest to other countries between the wars. Looks to me like something’s holding us back. But even if you’re right and we’re not oppressed, what argument is that not to be a country like any other country? Why
not
be independent? Surely that’s the question?’

Don shook his head. ‘The question’s no why
not
. The question’s
why
? Why change things? Why build Hadrian’s Wall again? What’s the point? I’m sick o frontiers and boundaries.’

They drank in silence for a minute. Don remembered Liz’s suggestion about asking the Gordons for a meal.

‘How d’ye feel aboot coming roond tae oors next Saturday?’ he said.

‘Coming round?’ Jack said.

‘You and your wife and lassie. Come for your tea. Liz says I’ve tae ask ye.’ Faced with Jack’s stony blankness, he made a joke of it. ‘Or the week efter. Ony Saturday that Liz isna in labour.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Jack said.

‘We’d like tae meet your wife. What’s she cried again? Her name’s gone oot o my heid.’

‘Sarah?’ Jack said. He seemed surprised that anybody should want to know.

‘And the bairn? It is a lassie, is it no? I’m sure I mind ye saying that.’

‘It is. Barbara. Thank you, but no,’ Jack said. ‘We’re not good company.’

‘Ye dinna need tae mind us,’ Don said. ‘We’re easy. Nae airs and graces.’

‘Thank you,’ Jack said again, with a note of finality, ‘but no.’

Was it shyness, fear, shame? Don had heard stories of former POWs who couldn’t bear eating in other people’s company, other people’s houses. It was a private thing for them. They had to eat everything quickly, all at once, or they took an age. Or they couldn’t abide waste, slid potatoes into their pockets before they left the table. Was that it? Whatever it was, there seemed no sense in pushing it if Jack didn’t want to come.

§

Liz was determined, though. If the Gordons wouldn’t come to them, they’d go to the Gordons. Something in her reached out to the unknown Sarah Gordon. The following Saturday afternoon, after Don had had his bread and jam and tea, she suggested they all go for a walk. It was the end of August, sunny and still. They set off, Liz braving the world with her bulge, Billy half-silly at being out with his father, Don content to saunter along and pass the time of day with a man clipping his hedge, with another oiling the chain on his bike. They went up the hill and along the road of slightly bigger, detached bungalows where the Gordons stayed. Liz paused in front of a house with a striped, shorn lawn and white paintwork.

‘This is it,’ she said. ‘I asked at the post office, just tae be sure. I’d hae come on my ain, but I thought it would be better if you were here, at least the first time.’

All through the village front doors lay open to the day, but the door of the Gordons’ house was shut. Liz saw Don’s reluctance.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘it’s no a criminal offence. We’re just being friendly.’

She unsnecked the gate and went in. Billy made a dash for the expanse of green grass and started running around in circles on it. Liz went up to the door and rapped the knocker.

‘He’ll think we’re interfering,’ Don muttered.

‘Well, we are, but there’s nae harm in it.’

The door opened. A thin, pale woman with a hank of blonde hair falling over her face stood there. At her side, peering anxiously out at Billy on the lawn, was a little girl.