The Tangling of the Web (17 page)

‘No,’ was Sally’s abrupt reply. ‘And I wish everyone would stop making me feel guilty – after all, she was the one who slapped me in the face.’

‘Oh, oh,’ was David’s response. ‘Didn’t realise you held grudges.’

‘Hold grudges?’ Sally loudly exploded, causing other nearby customers to look towards her. ‘Let me tell you, I don’t stick pins in wax effigies or keep shrunken heads …’ jumping to her feet she continued, ‘… but, believe me, I’m not stupid enough to put my head on the block again. So could I bid you goodnight.’ With that, she flounced out the door and hailed a taxi.

‘Where to, lady?’ the cab driver asked.

Sally hesitated. ‘Suppose if I am to get some peace in this world it had better be the Royal Infirmary.’

The taxi drew to a halt at the main entrance to the 1920s upgraded Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Sally alighted.

After paying the taxi fare, she looked up at the world-famous clock tower that dominated the centre of the sprawling building and was surprised to see it was already ten o’clock.
Well past visiting hours,
she reminded herself. Her eyes were then drawn to the stones on either side of the clock face and she noted that the inscription on the left read, ‘I WAS A STRANGER AND YE TOOK ME IN’, and on the right, ‘I WAS SICK AND YE VISITED ME’. ‘Right enough.’ Sally paused to have a little laugh before going on to whisper audibly, ‘Could have been written for my pal and me these comforting words because, like it says, she was a stranger and I took her in and befriended her, but my reward was not gratitude … Regrettably it was betrayal that made me sick. And sick as I was, she never visited me. And as to the second dedication, that fits too, because am I not here to visit her?’ Sally hesitated before acknowledging that she was indeed calling in on her – but regrettably with no Christian charity in her heart.

Without any further deliberation, she proceeded up the steps, which took her into the main corridor. Immediately she was confronted with two large panels bearing the names of those who had donated to the upgrade of this medical institution in 1920. She noted they were mostly from the Scottish nobility, business owners and those wealthy people who valued having their names promoted.

Turning to glance at another panel in the hope that it would give her directions to the ward, she was pleased to see that it did.

The sudden appearance of a creaking trolley caused her to turn with a start, and she gasped when she found herself face to face with a porter who was pushing a shroud-covered portable table. ‘No need to be feart, missus,’ the man lisped. ‘Sure, it’s no the dead you hae to fear, it’s the twisted living.’

Sally nodded in agreement before starting towards the stairs to the upper wards. The loud clicking of her heels on the stone steps, however, seemed to her, who was trying to sneak into a ward unnoticed, to be heralding her arrival.

The door to the ward she sought was locked, but as luck would have it, John Thomson, the constable on the opposite shift from Luke, was emerging. ‘Well, hello,’ he exclaimed when faced with Sally. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’

Sally gave a nervous little laugh. She liked John Thomson and it was evident he liked Josie, Luke and herself, always stopping them to ask how they were doing and how they were getting on. ‘Visiting a friend,’ Sally managed to mumble when she stopped her deliberations. However, before going on she placed a hand intimately on his arm. ‘You see, I explained,’ she lied, ‘to the duty staff I couldn’t make the normal visiting hour tonight – you know, John, how I have to keep the punters from dying of thirst – so they said I could have a few minutes now – provided, that is, she’s not asleep.’

John stood aside and allowed Sally to enter. ‘Aye, well, I would have waited for you and given you a lift hame, but we’re busy tonight and I’m only up here because a punter decided to go for a swim in the docks.’ He chuckled before continuing, ‘Cannae get any help from the other divisions; they’re all hard-pressed too. And into the bargain we had to police a big concert in the Usher Hall. That French bloke … ye ken the singer Charlie something or other.’

‘Aznavour, or as we say in Leith, Asnovoice,’ was Sally’s response as she removed her shoes so she could tiptoe into the ward.

‘Listen, Sally, for a long time now I’ve been thinking of bringing in my dad to meet you. Knew your mother, he did, and he was wondering if you or anybody in your family had taken after her.’

Hope not,
Sally thought before looking up into John’s eyes and replying, ‘I would love to meet your dad so bring him in any time you like.’

* * *

In the second bed on the right, quite a distance from the nurses’ station, which indicated that the person in the bed was no longer critical, Sally found her quarry. She was awake.

‘Is that really you?’ was the patient’s hoarse, whispered question to Sally, who took up a position at the foot of the bed.

‘Yes, Maggie, it’s me. And what I want to know is why have you been upsetting my apple cart again?’ hissed Sally.

‘Oh Sally, he left me. Can you believe after all I did for him that he could throw me over for a
bimbo
?’ Maggie began to sob quietly.

Sally, her head spinning, didn’t reply because she was thinking,
But Maggie, you were only with him for three years – how do you think I felt that after twenty plus years looking after him and bearing him three bairns that he waltzed off with you, a has-been that never was?

Sensing, as she thought, Sally’s grief, Maggie broke the silence. With great sympathy, she mumbled, ‘Sally, I’m sorry I hurt you … I’ve missed you so much … Especially now I’m all alone. I am truly, truly sorry I stole Harry from you.’

Lifting Maggie’s right hand into hers, Sally squeezed it hard. ‘No. No. You should have no regrets about taking Harry from me.’

Pulling her hand from Sally’s so she could struggle up in bed, Maggie leant closer to Sally. ‘I just know,’ she confided quietly, ‘he’ll come to his senses and he’ll leave her and come back – and if he wants to go to you then that will be okay by me.’

Having become a tough woman over the last three years, Sally knew she had to respond forcibly to Maggie’s statement so, having no regard for the other sleeping patients, she announced in a loud voice, ‘I don’t think you understand, Maggie, that I’m here not to try and get Harry back but to thank you most sincerely for having taken him off my hands. You see, him going liberated me, and now I wouldn’t take him back even if he came with his backside studded in diamonds.’

Sally could go on no further with her tirade, as the duty nurse had flown like a ghost silently down the ward. Grabbing Sally by the arm, she demanded, ‘Who on earth are you? And what are you doing here?’

‘It’s alright, nurse,’ Maggie croaked. ‘She’s my best friend and she has just told me that she’s going to look after me.’

‘Is that right?’ the nurse asked.

‘No. Not really. I just came by to say to Maggie not to worry. Plus, I think you should get her some treatment for her delusions.’

‘But Sally, you will say that you’ll take me out of here or I won’t get out.’

Sally turned on her heel and headed for the door. The nurse unlocked it and before closing it on Sally she said, ‘She’s being transferred to the Andrew Duncan Clinic.’

Sighing and sobbing gently, the supposedly tough Sally sagged against the wall.
Am I hearing right?
she wondered.
Did that nurse, in a coded form, say that Maggie has been sectioned for her own protection and now she is being transferred to the Royal Edinburgh psychiatric hospital? Oh,
Sally thought,
Why, Harry, do you and your blasted daughter Margo think you have the right to drive other people insane?

* * *

It was going on eleven when Sally emerged from the hospital, and when a spectral male figure emerged from the shadows she became alarmed. What could she do? Her first thought was to run towards the front street, where she reckoned there would be someone to assist her. She was just on the verge of bolting when the man said, ‘Somehow I knew you would come here.’

She stopped abruptly and turned to face him. ‘And how did you know, for definite, I would be here, David?’

‘The taxi driver returned to his rank too soon to have dropped you in Leith, so I asked him where he had put you down.’

‘And he told you,’ Sally exclaimed.

‘To be truthful, he wouldn’t have, but a flash of a warrant card loosened his tongue. So now may I drive you home?’

Sally was tempted to say ‘no’ but thought better of it, and soon they were making their way to her home.

Once they had parked, David turned to her. ‘Look, Sally,’ he confided, ‘all I want is to have you as a friend who will accompany me to the theatre, pictures and whatever – please believe that my intentions are honourable.’

‘But surely you have numerous colleagues who could do the arts round with you?’

‘Oh, I have a lot of mates, but their interests are in football, bowling, fishing and any other sport they fancy.’

‘I see.’

‘So is that a “yes”?’

‘No. It’s a definite “no”. You see, going to the hospital to see Maggie reminded me of how awful and worthless I felt when Harry left me. And what kind of a person would I be if I was to do that to another woman – especially one who is facing the problems that your wife is?’

‘But Elspeth is always saying that I must try to make a life for myself that doesn’t include her.’

‘Yes. That is what she knows she must say. But somewhere deep down in her psyche she is hoping that you still love her – find her attractive – will be the one holding her hand when her premature end comes.’

‘You don’t know Elspeth. Honestly, since she was diagnosed with that blasted multiple sclerosis she’s been urging me to divorce her.’

‘And leave your daughters to struggle to care for her … pick up your burden? I don’t think so.’

David shook his head. ‘I would never do that. Believe me, when Elspeth’s end does come, she will know that I thank her, most sincerely, for the two most precious gifts she gave me – my daughters. She will also leave us knowing that always I will be grateful to her for having been my beautiful, loving wife.’

‘And that is how it should be. As to us … you’re welcome at any time to come into the Four Marys for a dram and a chat, but that’s all. Platonic at the start we could be, but after a time, because we are both sexually attracted to each other …’

David scoffed and shook his head.

‘Shake your head all you like,’ Sally responded, ‘but there’s no use in denying it. After all, is that not why you came to look for me tonight?’

‘But our relationship
will
be on a strictly idealistic basis.’

‘Even if it was, the rest of the world won’t see it like that. What they will think is that I’m a tart who’s having an affair with a married man and that would never be acceptable to me.’

‘Surely if you know it’s not true then you could cope.’

Sally shook her head. ‘Don’t you also realise your career promotion prospects would then be non-existent?’

‘That’s rubbish.’

‘No, it’s not. John Knox may have been dead for hundreds of years, but he still lives and rules in all the headquarters in the High Street.’

David did not respond, because he knew she was speaking the truth. At this moment in time, his career meant so much to him that he just wouldn’t put it in jeopardy.

Sally interrupted his thoughts. ‘Besides,’ she began, ‘the other thing I have been reminded of today is how I hated the bloody awful reputation my mother had. Jump into bed with any man, she would. So David, you must accept that I will never embarrass my children in that way. Oh no, no one will ever be able to say that Sally Mack is just like her mother.’

She said no more, but she did think that if she ever did, and she doubted if she ever would, forget to be virtuous it would be with a man like David Stock.

When Sally met up with Nancy to put forward her proposal, Nancy’s reaction was totally different from what she had expected.

‘Sally,’ Nancy had begun, ‘it’s not that I’m not flattered that you thought of me to help you out. It’s just that I have been self-employed all my life. Right enough, I sign on every week saying I’m available for work, but I never ask for any unemployment benefit; I just need my card stamped so I can get the state old age pension when I’m sixty.’

Sally was dumbfounded and unable to hide her incredulity, so all she could say was, ‘What?’

‘Och, Sally, surely you cannae be that naïve. Naw. Naw.There’s no one single pro, like me, paying the government its due in tax and insurance. So you see I wouldnae be working for myself any more and not only would I then be paying income tax but I would have to pitch up every day even if I didnae feel like getting up.’

‘So you don’t want either the training or the job?’

‘No saying exactly that. And it’s true that at my age it might be a step in the right direction.’ Nancy now advanced closer to Sally and lifted her right hand and waggled her fingers before cheekily asking under her breath, ‘And as part of the deal … does a compulsory mink jacket and diamond rings come with it?’

Shaking her head, Sally was about to withdraw her offer, but she looked hard at Nancy and she saw that her stance was just a bluff. She could see in her face that Nancy wanted nothing more than to be out of her sordid profession and here was Sally offering a way of getting a bit of respectability. But what she didn’t want was Sally knowing how hard life was getting for her on the streets, especially now that she was past her best. No longer was she able to pick and choose her clients like the young lassies could. And the day was just around the corner when there would only be the likes of drunken Sam, who would proposition her for the price of a glass of cheap wine. ‘Well, Nancy,’ Sally said when the pause had gone on too long, ‘you think my very good offer over and remember it would require you completely giving up your present trade. Now should you decide to accept my terms of employment, just turn up on Monday at the Royal Stuart at ten o’clock sharp.’

‘Ten o’clock in the morning? That’s the middle of the night.’