Gillespie and I (3 page)

The lady gave me a rather distrustful glance, then turned her head towards her companion and whispered hoarsely: ‘Annie! Where's my handbag?'

(As if I might have stolen it!)

The young woman picked up the bag to show her. Another ragged cheer went up, but now that the crisis had ended and—alas—nobody was dying, people had begun to drift away. I gazed at the teeth in my hand, wondering what to do with them. Elspeth herself was too confused to take them from me, so I held them out to Annie, who gazed at me blankly for a moment and then, emptying her own bag onto the pavement, began to sift through its contents, finally producing a rather grubby handkerchief, in which she wrapped the denture.

I thanked her, and she nodded. ‘Aye, you're welcome.'

What a delightful local accent she had! I had imagined that, since she was reasonably well dressed, she might be rather differently spoken. But it was quite charming to hear such a pretty Glaswegian brogue.

From her prone position, Elspeth squinted at me. ‘Have we been introduced, madam?' she asked, faintly.

‘This lady's a nurse,' Annie explained. ‘She made you better.'

At this, I felt shamefaced. The time had come to tell the truth. After all, my intervention had been a success. I had saved a life! I stood up, brushing the dust from my skirts, saying: ‘To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly a nurse. I simply know a little about how to tend to the injured.'

Annie frowned. ‘Oh?' she said, examining me afresh, apparently disconcerted. Her reaction caused me to wonder whether she would have been so trusting of me had she known the truth all along.

Elspeth was gazing at me, still befuddled.

‘I've seen her before,' she said.

‘No,' sighed Annie. ‘This is the lady that made you better. Just rest now.'

At that moment, the dustily clad youth returned, accompanied by a gentleman whose leather bag and general air of imperious, bad-tempered conceit revealed him to be a doctor. In fact, I was relieved to yield authority to him. The strain of the past few minutes had begun to catch up with me, and I felt a little light-headed. I gave him a brief account of what had taken place, and he raised an eyebrow when he heard how long Elspeth had been unconscious, without breathing.

‘Perhaps two minutes, you say?' He looked me up and down as he tried to get my measure. ‘You are medically trained, madam?'

‘Not exactly. Not medically trained, no, but—'

‘I thought not,' he said, distinctly unimpressed. ‘None the less, I'd wager you've saved this lady's life.'

Then he knelt down to tend to Elspeth, who submitted, like a child, to his examination. Annie—having gathered up her scattered belongings—had stood up, and was skittishly untying and retying the ribbon strings of her hat. I decided to absent myself quietly and politely.

‘Well, I must go now. I'm so glad to have been of some use to you today.'

‘Och, thanks for your help,' said Annie, and I was about to take my leave when she added: ‘By the bye, how
do
you know all those things? Listening for a heartbeat and all the rest?'

I hesitated.

‘Well, you see, I was looking after someone who was ill, and in the interest of being more useful, I attended some lectures by the St John Ambulance Association. The instructors demonstrated all sorts of procedures and techniques—'

‘Oh well, that's good.'

‘Yes—but sadly, what I learned was not enough to save my poor aunt. She died, just before Christmas.'

‘Och, I'm sorry!' said Annie. ‘I didn't realise.'

‘Please—don't apologise. Sometimes, I do still dress in mourning—except that I had the misfortune, the other day, to be caught in that dreadful thunderstorm without my umbrella. There was not a cab in sight, and—well—I had to walk all the way back to Queen's Crescent in the pouring rain. Crape is such a difficult fabric, I find: it just shrivels and rusts in the slightest shower.'

Elspeth, who had sat up to accept a glass of water from one of the shopkeepers, croaked: ‘Queen's Crescent? At George's Cross?'

I admitted that this was, indeed, where I lodged.

‘That's just around the corner from us,' said Annie.

‘Invite her to call,' whispered Elspeth. ‘Tomorrow.'

‘Perhaps the lady's too busy.' Annie turned to me. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know your name. I'm Annie—Annie Gillespie.'

‘Nonsense,' came the matron's husky voice. ‘She's not too busy.'

‘And that's my mother-in-law, Elspeth—Mrs Gillespie.'

‘How do you do?' I said. ‘My name's Harriet—Miss Harriet Baxter. But, as for tea—I couldn't possibly—'

‘Annie! Tell her!'

The young woman raised an eyebrow, and gazed at me, without enthusiasm. ‘I'm afraid we have no choice in the matter,' she said.

And so it was that I was invited for tea, the very next day, at Stanley Street.

Momentous occasion!

Or was it? Upon reflection, I believe that I did feel rather pleased, but only in the way that one does when invited to break bread with a Native. Suddenly one feels an entirely new connection to the place where one finds oneself. It no longer feels like such foreign soil. And a world of hitherto unknown possibilities seems to open up.

2

On the following day—promptly, at three o'clock—I presented myself at the door of number 11 Stanley Street, and rang the top bell. I had found the address with no difficulty since it was, as Annie had said, just around the corner from my lodgings. Indeed, when she described the location of her residence to me, I realised that I had already walked along Stanley Street a number of times, because it was on one of my routes to the park. Apparently, her mother-in-law occupied a main-door house across the road, but it was to Annie's home at number 11 that I had been invited.

In contrast to Queen's Crescent (a well-kept terrace of houses set behind a pretty communal garden) Stanley Street was rather less attractive: a short thoroughfare, flanked by spiked iron railings behind which lay tenements, handsome but much blackened by carbonic deposits, the whole vista made all the more sombre by a lack of open spaces or greenery. These were still respectable dwellings: indeed, it seemed that a well-known composer resided across the landing from the Gillespies. However, most of the inhabitants of Stanley Street were much less affluent than their neighbours in some of the very grand terraces nearby.

Annie herself threw open the door. She looked surprised—and possibly slightly irritated—when she saw me.

‘Miss Baxter—oh dear, you're on time.'

‘Ah—I do apologise. Shall I come back later?'

‘Oh no—come in, come in. It's just that we're not quite ready.'

She shut the door behind me, then turned and began to make her way up the long close towards the stairs. Now that she was hatless, I could see the full glory of her hair, a tangle of golden tresses worn about her shoulders in half-hearted plaits.

‘It's the maid's afternoon off,' she called out. ‘So we're fending for ourselves … hope you don't mind.'

‘Not at all.'

Glancing upwards, I decided to conserve my breath for the ascent. We climbed several flights of stone steps, passing, on each landing, the entrances to other apartments. The stairwell was clean, but the air was stuffy, and redolent of many gravies. Annie bounded ahead of me and, upon reaching the topmost storey, she stepped through an open door on the right, saying: ‘Here we are.'

By the time that I entered the apartment, a few moments later, she had disappeared. The hall in which I found myself was furnished attractively but simply, with a coat stand and a few framed photographs. A narrow flight of stairs at the far end provided access, presumably, to an upper floor. Several doors led off the hallway, but only one—that which faced the little staircase—lay fully open, and so I headed towards it. A glance across the threshold confirmed that here, indeed, was the parlour: a modestly furnished room, with a threadbare carpet.

Annie had already made herself comfortable on a faded sofa by the hearth. The only other occupants of the room were Elspeth—who, apparently fully recovered, was stuffing envelopes at the central table—and two small girls, one of about seven years of age, the other perhaps four years younger. As I stepped across the threshold, these children ran to Annie's side and clutched at her skirts, staring at me with suspicion. Meanwhile, Elspeth had risen to greet me.

‘Ahh! Come in, dear friend! My Angel of Mercy!' She came towards me, grinning from ear to ear. This ebullient mood was quite in contrast to her subdued, whispering demeanour of the previous day. (I was relieved to note that she had also put her teeth back in; as far as I am aware, she only ever wore the top set.) ‘How lovely to see you, Miss Bexter. We're absolutely delighted that you're here.'

Now that she was no longer hoarse, I realised that she had a rather distinctive accent, which flattened the vowels. This supposedly Anglified pronunciation was, as I had already noted from my encounters with certain other Glaswegians, an artifice deployed—mainly by ladies—who believed that it made them sound more
refained
. Although her words themselves were unequivocally welcoming, I have to admit that I felt myself slightly overborne, since Elspeth's intonation was a mite shrill and jarring. Of course, we cannot all have pleasant voices, and it is certainly not
essential
in life to speak in mellifluous tones; no doubt, this lady had many redeeming qualities, but Orphean elocution was not one of them.

She guided me towards an easy chair, opposite the sofa.

‘I wasn't
compos mentis
yesterday, after fainting. But Annie has told me what happened. My dear friend, I owe my life to you—
my very life
!' At this, she chuckled hard—and at such proximity that I feared for the integrity of my eardrum. I took a faltering step backwards (narrowly avoiding a collision with an old what-not) and sank down onto the chair. ‘You just make yourself at home, Miss Bexter.'

‘Please, do call me Harriet.'

‘Yes indeed. Herriet! And you must call me Elspeth.' She smiled at the children, who were casting wary glances at me, as though I were the Boneyman. Then her gaze fell upon the heap of papers on the table. ‘Dearie me, look at this guddle.' She hurried over to tidy the mess. ‘You must excuse us, Herriet. We are just now in the process of sending out the newsletter for my dear church, Free St John's on George Street. It's that time of the month again. I must tell you, this edition has a particularly interesting article on the Jewish mission on the south of the river. I don't know if you're familiar with the mission?'

‘No, I'm not.'

‘Well—you
must
read this article. I'm sure you'd find it of interest. You are Jewish, are you not?'

I gazed at her, somewhat taken aback. ‘No,' I said, after a moment.

‘Ah—do forgive me. I thought for some reason … although now I reflect on it your name isn't particularly Jewish, is it? Oh well, never mind. It is a most interesting article none the less.' Learning that I was not, in fact, Jewish seemed, momentarily, to have knocked the wind out of her sails. She paused to draw breath, beaming hard (for some reason) at Annie, who smiled vaguely back at her. I was on the point of saying something myself, but before I could utter a syllable, Elspeth was off again. ‘There's also an extremely good piece on Reverend Johnson in this edition. You'll have heard of Jacob Johnson, our wonderful Negro revivalist who arrived last week? What an inspiring sermon he gave us! He and his family were my guests on Wednesday evening, you know. It is quite charming to look around the table and see such an array of happy brown faces: I find them so soothing to look at and attractive. Do you know, Herriet, sometimes I find myself wishing that all Glasgow were filled with Negroes, singing and chuckling in that infectious way they have, rather than miserable peely-wally Scottish folk. Would that not be far superior?'

She chortled merrily and, not wishing to be thought impolite, I joined in the mirth. Annie, I noticed, did not laugh, but there was a glazed smile on her lips as she stared out of the window, apparently lost in thought.

‘Now, Miss Bexter,' cried Elspeth. ‘If you'll excuse me, I shall hold my wheesht—as we say here in Scotland—and go and hurry along our tea.'

Elspeth swept out of the room, still chuckling, and then began humming a strident tune, which remained audible until she entered another room and closed the door behind her. For a moment, silence fell. It was broken only when Annie breathed in deeply and then gave vent to an enormous sigh, rather as though oxygen had just flooded back into the parlour. Perhaps Elspeth's cheerful volubility was a source of some vexation to her daughter-in-law, but when I turned to look at Annie, she was gazing down at the child who lay in her lap: the three-year-old, who had scrambled there whilst Elspeth had been holding forth. The girl was now curled up, like a baby. Annie stroked her hair.

‘There, Rose, that's right,' she murmured and it all made quite a charming picture, until one realised that Annie (having made some adjustment to the bodice of her dress) was quite openly nursing the girl. I believe that, momentarily, I was taken unawares, having never before witnessed this intimate maternal procedure. Perhaps the surprise was evident in my face, because when Annie glanced up, she said: ‘Oh, you don't mind, do you? Only I can't get this wee one to leave me alone—you'd think she wanted to crawl inside my skin.'

Just then, the seven-year-old climbed up beside them. This child had fussed and fretted since my arrival. Having failed to force herself onto her mother's lap, she now stood up and commenced to bang her hip against Annie's shoulder, until Annie was forced to remonstrate with her, whereupon the child threw herself down upon the sofa and began to wail.