The Shadow of the Sycamores (45 page)

Before they went to bed that night, Fay wrapped the little package up again and laid it reverently in the left-hand cupboard of the dresser, behind her best china tea set. An onlooker may have assumed that it was being put out of sight to help them to forget what had happened but Fay, at least, knew that it would never be forgotten. It would be taken out regularly in memory of her younger son, the son she had never meant as a replacement for her first born. She had thought, and felt guiltily about it, that she had loved Andrew more than she loved Jerry but that wasn’t true. She had loved her younger son every bit as much and would mourn him for the rest of her life.

In the morning, she made her husband go to work as usual, although he hated the idea of leaving her alone. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she assured him. ‘I want to be on my own for a while. I’m all churned up inside and I need peace to …’

‘If you’re sure.’ Henry felt exactly the same and was dreading meeting people. All his friends, and even mere acquaintances, would want to tell him how sorry they were and he didn’t think he could bear it. But he loved Fay too much to deny her the privacy she wanted at this time. In fact, he would shield her, warn well-wishers off going to console her.

Gradually, as always happens, Fay and Henry were drawn back into the daily life of the town and found themselves commiserating with other parents who had lost a son – in some tragic cases,
more than one. Two neighbouring families, one consisting of six sons and five daughters, the other five sons and six daughters, had been made closer when all eleven young men were away fighting for their country – the two mothers even compared letters. But, as the war went on, only one of them had the heartache. All five of her sons were killed and her friendship with her neighbour, whose six sons were still alive, turned to hatred.

It was happening all over and no one, even men of the cloth, could explain to the grieving women why God had taken their sons and not others. Fay astounded Henry one evening by saying, ‘I’m glad we had only one son to give. If I’d had five taken from me, like Maggie Tyler, I’d either have gone off my head or killed myself.’

‘Oh, my Fairy!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t think you would. You’re made of stronger stuff than that. You’d be like Maggie, putting a brave face on though her heart must be broken – but I bet she gives way when she’s in her own house.’

So Fay did her best to emulate Maggie Tyler, keeping up appearances in front of others but giving way to her sorrow when she was alone.

It may have comforted Fay had she known that she had a daughter-in-law and a grandson – they would have given her something to live for – but Daphne, now Mrs Jeremy Rae, had given up trying to find where her husband’s parents lived. ‘He can’t have been killed,’ she had wailed to her mother when they were celebrating her infant son’s first birthday. ‘His mum would have written to me.’

Lil shrugged her bust a little higher because the busks of her corsets were digging into her. ‘I think you’re right. He’s just turned his back on you, that’s what. The war’s over so he can’t be fighting the Germans now. He seemed such a decent young man at first but … how could he just walk out on his wife and son? You should write and ask the authorities for an allowance for you and the boy.’

‘I’ll manage on my own without any help from Jerry or anybody else. As long as you’re willing to look after Ollie while I go out to work.’

‘You know I am. That child is the light of my life, no matter what kind of father he had.’

It was well into 1920 before Daphne gave up her secret hope that Jerry would come back to her. Only then did she start to lead a normal life.

‘I think we should encourage her to go out more,’ Lil told her husband. ‘It would be nice if she could find a boy …’

‘Stop trying your hand at matchmaking,’ Rob growled. ‘Your first attempt didn’t end up too well.’

‘It wasn’t my fault! How was I to know he’d desert her as soon as she bore his child? Though I suppose I should have realised – after what he did before.’

Rob said no more. His wife was always saying things like that but young Jerry
had
been a decent boy and he wouldn’t have walked out on his wife and son. If he had been killed in action, it was possible, going by the post-war accounts of the slaughter and mayhem on the battlefields, that records had been lost or maybe hadn’t even been kept. It might be worth writing to the Ministry of Defence or whoever to find out more. They might give out the name and address of his next of kin.

It wasn’t up to him though. Lil would go mad if he interfered. She was so bloody positive Jerry was a rotter.

And … maybe he was, at that.

Henry Rae was beginning to feel his age. The braes were getting steeper, both up and down, and the roads were getting longer. There had been more houses built – whole estates with stupid names like Valentino Gardens, a film star popular long before Ardbirtle had a cinema at all. The old names were best – heroes of the past: Nelson Street, Wellington Road, Kitchener Place, right up to Haig and a few lesser known participants in the war.

His other duties were almost non-existent now. There had been no court case for a long, long time, so no villains to usher in – most of the culprits had only been petty thieves, in any case and the worst crime had been forging a signature on a stolen chequebook. The last public announcement had been the death of Edward VII and the accession of his son, George V. The smart uniform he’d been so proud to wear had then hung in the closet for twenty-five years, with mothballs to preserve it. It certainly had no moth holes when Fay took it out and pressed it for the Silver Jubilee celebrations last year – but the reek of camphor had nearly choked him and anybody who came near him.

He might not get another chance to wear it. The king could live for another ten years yet and he himself was bound to be put out to pasture any day now.

‘I’ve been waiting for the Provost to give me my marching orders,’ he told his wife one morning at breakfast. ‘It’s a whole month past my sixty-fifth birthday.’

Fay looked alarmed. ‘But you are still fit enough for the job – are you not?’

His smile was somewhat wry. ‘Some days I’m fitter than
others but I suppose I could go on for a while yet.’

‘Well, there you are, then,’ she said, triumphantly, nodding her silver head at him. ‘You know it and I know it and I’m sure the Provost knows it as well.’

‘Aye, well, maybe I should just carry on, then.

‘No maybe about it. There’s no sense in walking into trouble.’

Provost Leslie Main took his place at the council table and looked round the familiar faces, most having been there since he first took his place as an ordinary councillor – donkey’s years ago.

‘Nae much to speak about the day, lads,’ he boomed – his usual manner of addressing them in his mixture of broad Scots and English. ‘It has been brung to my attention that our Town Officer, T H Rae or Henry, as most of us ken him, has reached the grand age of sixty-five, as have some of us and all. But his job’s a lot mair taxing than ours.’ He halted in embarrassment. ‘Mair
physically
taxing, I should say. He works wi’ his hands but we work wi’ our brains. The point is should we retire him? We’ve certainly nae fault to find wi’ his work yet but you never ken, do you?’

‘What are you getting at, Provost?’ muttered one of the braver souls. ‘Are we to retire him or no’?’

Main, kicking seventy himself, scowled at the impudent upstart. Some of these youngsters took too much on themselves. ‘If you would learn to have patience, Mester Watt …’ He stopped to let this sink in. The ‘Mester’ was intended as an insult since it could be interpreted as Master as well as Mister. ‘If you will just be patient,’ he went on, ‘I will tell you. I propose that we leave things be the now but, if we see the job’s getting too much for him, we could
suggest
retirement to him. Mind you, it strikes me we’d ha’e a bit o’ a job finding a replacement. It’s nae a job to mony folks’s liking.’

Mr Watt got to his feet this time to have his say, his round boyish face already red in anticipation of another rebuff. ‘I wouldn’t say that, Provost. The job’s not as bad as it used to be. There’s not many horses fouling the roads these days.’ A
light murmur of agreement from his fellow councillors giving him confidence, he puffed out his chest. ‘The law of the land states that the retirement age is sixty-five and there should be no exceptions to the rule.’

This last sentiment was met with loud gasps from those council members who were already past the limit. ‘As long as the body’s fit and the brain’s clear,’ said the man on his left angrily, ‘I don’t see any need to take a man’s pride away from him. Henry Rae has given about thirty years’ service to the town, if not more, and I propose we employ a young lad to give him a hand. Then we could wait till he says he wants to retire.’

‘Seconded!’ came a roar from several others.

Leslie Main got to his feet again. ‘All those in favour?’ He didn’t bother to count the waving hands and smirked as he looked at the young troublemaker. ‘Carried near unanimously! You’ll put an advert in this week’s
Advertiser
, Jack? School-leaver required for outdoor work.’

Jack, the editor of the local weekly, took a note of this and then said, ‘I shouldna think there’ll be much bother about getting a laddie, Provost.’

‘No, I suppose you’ll get a shoal o’ answers so I’ll leave it to you to pick oot the best. Noo, if there’s nothing else on the agenda, gentlemen, we should catch The Doocot afore it shuts. All those in favour?’

A rousing chorus of ‘Aye!’ was accompanied by the scraping back of chairs.

The advent of a helper did little to raise Henry’s opinion of himself. This was just the thin edge of the wedge and, in a few months, when young Billy had proved his worth, one of the council would be promoting
him
to official Town Officer or maybe they would do away with the job as such and change it to Road Sweeper.

Henry had foreseen some weeks of training the lad, likely getting the height of cheek from him for youngsters nowadays thought they knew everything, but he was pleasantly surprised. The boy was always respectful to him – in fact, it was almost
as though he looked up to him – and he was, indeed, a great help. For the first week, they traversed the streets together. Then Billy was given his own ‘district’ and insisted on doing all the steep hills. They would meet up just after the parish kirk clock had struck twelve, at Henry’s house, where Fay had always some kind of soup ready for them and big chunks of the crusty bread she still made herself.

Although extremely shy at first, Billy Webster was soon won round by Fay, telling her that he had been brought up in the Aberlour Orphanage and was now in lodgings in Waterloo Road. She was horrified at this and, without consulting Henry, she told the boy he could lodge with them. It had to be arranged through the proper channels, of course, so it was more than two weeks later before he moved in with a small bundle of clothes, which constituted all his possessions. Fay quickly put this right, buying at least one item of clothing for him each week and assuring him that it was included in what she charged him for his board.

It soon became evident to Mara that Billy worshipped her mother but she felt no jealousy. As she told Leo, ‘She looks years younger and she’s happier than she’s ever been since we lost Jerry. It’s doing her good to have somebody like him to look after. I just hope he doesn’t get a job somewhere else and leave.’

Her husband shook his head. ‘Your mother is a loving soul and, from what you say, I think he’s beginning to look on your parents as
his
parents too. I’m sure it would take something drastic to make him leave them.’

Although Mara was easier in her mind about her mother and father, she had an ongoing worry about her husband. His doctor had warned her, before they left Edinburgh, not to expect a long married life. ‘Five years at most,’ the man had said sadly, yet they had celebrated almost twenty years together a few months ago. It had been hard going for her at times, though Leo had fought against the black moods that took possession of him, almost as if he knew what Doctor Perry had told her and was determined to prove the man a charlatan.

However, since their fifteenth anniversary – at which his father had been present, along with her parents and a few friends who had taken to visiting him – it seemed that he had lost heart. The spells of deep depression, which had grown less and less frequent over the years, had recently accelerated into one or more every day.

He somehow managed to hide them from everyone else – it was she who bore the brunt of his tempers, of his whiplash sarcasm, of the accusations he flung at her about seeing other men when she was out. So far, she had taken his jibes and the swearing by just ignoring them and finding some heavy work to do but it had begun to tell on her. More than one person, her mother most of all, had commented on how tired she looked and she
was
tired – utterly, totally exhausted. It was an effort to rise in the mornings, a bigger effort to stop herself shouting back at Leo and she didn’t know how long she could keep going.

She was fully aware that he couldn’t help himself and she still loved him as much as ever – in spite of what he said and did. She spoke the truth when she told him she would never look at another man. She would never, ever, meet anyone else that she would want to share her life with. No matter how Leo behaved now, they’d had many long years of almost perfect bliss, much more than she had expected. God had been good to her.

Strangely, it was Henry who got the first hint of change in his son-in-law. He, like Fay, had seen, and been concerned about, the change in their daughter, often discussing what might have caused it, but he had not dreamt of the real reason. Leo had always appeared to be a calm, easy-going young man, accepting his lot stoically and showing his gratitude to his wife for all she did for him. But it had not been like that!

Henry’s day had started with Fay complaining of feeling sick and she was no better at noon so, when Mara popped in as usual, he had asked her to stay with her mother for a while to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with her. ‘I’ll get Billy to bike … no! I’ll go myself to let Leo know. Can he
manage to make something for his dinner himself?’