The Shadow of the Sycamores
Read The Shadow of the Sycamores Online
Authors: Doris Davidson
PROLOGUE
1870
Even realising that his predicament was of his own making, Willie Rae felt at odds with the whole world. Surely he could be excused for drowning his sorrow at his wife’s death? Of course, he
had
done a good bit of celebrating yesterday evening for the birth of his first son but he could hold his liquor, always could, and Mister High-and-Mighty John Gow was worse than him, blethering like a daftie and him the Kirk’s Session Clerk.
‘Are you sober enough to carry out your job?’ Willie asked suddenly. ‘I dinna want things going wrong.’
‘I’m as shober as you!’ came the indignant response, which was not saying much for he needed the bar counter to keep him upright.
‘We’d best get on wi’ it, then.’
Walking unsteadily to the door, neither man was aware of the ludicrous spectacle they made. ‘The blind leadin’ the blind,’ as joiner Tam Mavor remarked to his brother, sitting beside him on the bench nearest the fire.
‘The blind drunks more like it,’ sniggered Geordie, the local carrier.
‘You’re right there,’ nodded Ben Roberts, London-born landlord of The Doocot wherein they were drinking and, as resident in the small town of Ardbirtle for little more than seven years, still considered an incomer, even a foreigner. ‘But you can’t blame Willie, can you? This must be his fifth child.’
Tam shook his head, ‘My Jean says it’s his thirteenth.’
Even Geordie’s eyes widened in astonishment at this statement. ‘Thirteen? As much as that? Surely no’?’
‘Right enough – though the other twelve was lassies. There’s only …’ Tam broke off to count the survivors on his fingers. ‘There’s Jeannie – she’s ages wi’ my Jessie so that would make her twelve – and Bella, after her Ma – she’d be ten, maybe – and … eh … Kitty … she must be six or seven – and Abby, Abigail, I suppose – she’s just two.’ He paused again to check his memory and then continued, ‘So that had been … um … eight that died as infants.’
‘Poor things,’ his brother said mournfully, then reverted to his previous thought. ‘Thirteen? That’s a terrible lot for ony man to gi’e a wumman.’
Ben blew into the tumbler he was drying and gave it another rub with the towel. ‘His missus can’t have had as many headaches as my Sophie,’ he said, wistfully.
Steadying himself after almost overbalancing on a large stone, John Gow said, ‘Have you and Bella decided on a name?’
‘Bella decided.’ Willie’s brow furrowed now. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what his wife had said last night before she died but it would come to him.
They tottered along in silence, the tall well-built blacksmith with a shock of brindled hair and the short tubby Session Clerk whose bald pate made him a target for the youths of the town to laugh at. Each man had to concentrate on putting one foot past the other without tripping, although it was hardly any distance from the hostelry to the church.
When they went into the vestry, Willie muttered, ‘You’d best register the death first, eh?’
‘This one hasn’t died as well? I thought you said you had a son …’
‘It wasna the bairn that died this time.’
John Gow sat down on his chair with a thump. ‘Oh, Willie, you’re surely not telling me Bella’s dead? Eh, man, I’m truly sorry to hear that.’
‘Aye.’ The widower wiped away the tear that had edged out in spite of his efforts to stop it. ‘I dinna ken what I’ll do without her.’
The death duly recorded, John turned and said to the other man, ‘Now for the bairn. What’s his name?’
Having been dredging his pickled brain in the hope of recovering the instruction he had been given, Willie had a flash of inspiration. His mother-in-law, living with them to help her daughter through her accouchement, had lifted the infant to feed him before he had left the house this last time. ‘Come to your Gramma, my poor, motherless, wee Chookie,’ she had crooned to him. Willie felt a surge of triumph. That must be the name the two women had chosen.
‘Chookie?’ repeated the Session Clerk, his eyebrows in danger of shooting off his forehead altogether. ‘What sort of name’s that?’ He scratched his head for a moment, then burst out, ‘Wait! Chookie? That sounds Russian to me. Your Bella was well educated was she not? She had seen the name in a book more than likely.’ His expression changed. ‘It’s not the kind of name I would have chosen myself, mind.’
Ignoring this, Willie puffed out his chest with a look of relieved pleasure. ‘Aye, my Bella was real clever, God rest her soul.’
‘So how is this Russian name spelled?’
‘How would I ken? You’re the Session Clerk – it’s up to you. Surely you’ve come across it afore?’
‘To be honest, Willie, I have never heard it before, let alone seen it written down, but I will give it my best try. Let me think.’ Taking a sheet of paper from the top drawer of the desk, he wrote a few versions before looking up uncertainly. ‘C-H-O-O-K-I-E doesn’t look the least bit foreign, not even C-H-O-U-K-E-Y.’
He bent his head as if praying for enlightenment, then said, almost to himself, ‘It has just come to me – there is a Russian composer, Tchaikovsky, and he begins T-C-H.’ Writing down these three letters, he regarded them speculatively. ‘Yes, that looks good. Now the oo sound. The Russian currency is the rouble, spelled O-U, so now we have the Tchou … but we need the ‘key’. To be authentic, the name should end in just a Y or an I. Let me see.’
He studied this final version, mouthing each syllable separately before sliding the paper across ‘What do you think?’
Willie took a quick squint but he had had little schooling and none of the items made any sense. ‘I’ll leave it to you,’ he mumbled, congratulating himself on remembering the name at all. His mother-in-law had never had a good opinion of him but she was bound to be pleased about this. A few moments later, he signed his name laboriously and rose to go.
Isie McIntyre, a thin woman of medium height with abrupt, bird-like movements, shot out her hand as soon as he went through the door of Oak Cottage. ‘I hope you minded my Bella’s dying wish,’ she grunted, fixing Willie with her beady eyes.
This baleful glare always made him feel as if she considered him dirt under her feet, but he handed her the document with a clear conscience. The old besom could not find fault with him over this. It was her own choice, though he could bet that she wouldn’t have known how to spell the name herself.
It took the woman some time to digest the information recorded on the certificate – she was not a fluent reader and, although John Gow was renowned for his copperplate handwriting if for no other talent except his capacity for strong drink, it was more difficult to understand than print. Then she let out a shriek of outraged anger that curdled Willie’s blood, it was so unexpected.
‘What’s this heathen name supposed to be?’
‘It’s what you s … s … said,’ he ventured, timidly.
‘I never said … that! I dinna even ken
how
to say it.’
‘It’s Tchouki,’ he mumbled, frantically wondering what had gone wrong.
‘Tchouki? Where on earth did you … Bella wanted the bairn cried after her father, my dear, dead husband.’
Recalling the many rows he had witnessed between her and her dear, dead husband, Willie wisely made no reference to them. ‘Tchouki’s what you said to him when you lifted him oot o’ the cradle,’ he mumbled, ‘so I thocht …’
‘Me?’ she screamed. ‘I’ve never heard tell o’ such an … outlandish name afore. Sounds African or Indian or something.’ She sank down on a chair with her hand on her heart as comprehension dawned. ‘Ach! You daft, drunken beggar! Chookie, Chookie’s what I cry to my hens when I’m feeding them and I sometimes say that to the bairn and all for he’s a dear wee chickie to me, poor motherless mite.’
Reminded thus of his wife’s death, Willie’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I’m sorry, Isie. I couldna mind what Bella said and I thocht …’
‘Thocht?’ she yelled. ‘Thocht? What do you use to think wi’, may I ask? Your brain’s pickled wi’ the whisky you pour down your thrapple, and that John Gow’s none better! Fancy thinking Chookie was a real name!’
‘He said it’s Russian,’ Willie declared, on the defensive, ‘and he ken’t how to spell it.’
‘He wouldn’t want to admit he didna ken so he made up that story and you believed him. Ach, Willie Rae, you’re worse than a bairn. You canna mind one thing I say to you.’ Taking another glance at the offending document, she shook her head and said, grimly, ‘So you’ll take this right back to the kirk an’ you’ll tell John Gow to change it. Your son’s not a foreigner … though it might be better for him if he was. God help him having you for a father!’
‘What have I to get it changed to?’ Willie tried not to sound aggressive, though he felt like throwing the interfering bitch out on to the road. He would have to depend on her to look after things for a while yet.
‘See?’ Isie cried, triumphantly. ‘You’ve forgot already.’ She gave a prolonged frustrated sigh and reached up to the mantelshelf to take something from behind the little alarm clock, noisily ticking the time away. ‘Bella wrote it down for you, even though she was dying, she ken’t she couldna depend on you. So you’d best take it wi’ you this time. The first name’s Henry – that’s my poor man – Bruce – that’s my maiden name – McIntyre – that’s Bella’s maiden name – and William – for you though you dinna deserve it. That’s
what his name should be. Off you go, now, and dinna come back till you’ve got it sorted out.’
‘I’m kind o’ hungry,’ he muttered but her heaving chest and lowering brow made him pick up his tweed cap and hurry out. Who did the woman think she was, he asked himself, as he went along the road. She thought she knew everything, but she knew damn all. It was no wonder Henry McIntyre had given up the ghost. He’d been scunnered with her dictating to him like that. But, once he got over Bella’s death,
he
would lay down some rules. Isie would have to knuckle down and do what
he
told her and she’d better have meals ready for him when he wanted them. She wasn’t going to rule the roost. She wouldn’t tell him when to change his socks … like she did that very morning.
‘I can smell your feet from here!’ she had sneered, looking at him across the table with her nose screwed up, and him in the middle of his porridge. He couldn’t help having sweaty feet. It proved he was a man, didn’t it? Not that anybody needed more proof of that, he thought proudly. He had fathered thirteen bairns – a baker’s dozen in fifteen years – and, if his Bella hadn’t died, he’d have fathered a good few more, for she hadn’t reached her thirty-fourth birthday, poor lass, and he was only thirty-six.
Busy with his thoughts, he reached the church gate before he knew where he was and slowed his pace to a nonchalant saunter. It wouldn’t do to let John Gow suspect that this change was not his own idea.