The Nickum Read online

  It was natural, then, that they drifted together, like with like, and formed several small groups. Willie found himself making a sixth of one set, four lads from Inverness who, pals since schooldays, had been joined on the train by a boy from Elgin, all on their way to report in Aberdeen.

  Gradually, as was also natural, the four original pals left the other two more and more often by themselves, and thus it was that Pat Michie and Willie Fowlie became inseparable. Through all the drills, the target practice and route marches, Willie looked after his friend, who reminded him very much of poor Poopie Grant. He, too, was shy and timid, afraid of asserting himself, and when any of the corporals or sergeants picked on Pat for not doing something correctly, it was Willie who stuck up for him. One sergeant, especially, seemed to find delight in holding Pat up for ridicule for his poor performances in the skills they were being taught, and constantly laughing at Willie for trying to defend him.

  ‘Who d’you think you are?’ he sneered one day. ‘A puffed-up Mammy’s boy? Little Lord Fauntleroy? A Nancy-boy student that thinks himself better than anybody else?’

  Willie saw red at this, and without stopping to think of the consequences he lashed out with his fist, taking the sergeant completely by surprise. ‘I’ll soon show you who’s a puffed-up Mammy’s boy,’ he snarled, ‘and I’m not a Nancy-boy because I stick up for a pal. I can recognise a bully when I see one, and you can put me on a charge if you want to. It’s been worth it.’

  To his astonishment, the sergeant spun round on his heel, rubbing the jaw that had suffered from Willie’s attack. The men who had stopped what they were doing to watch had all expected to see him being marched off to spend some time in the glasshouse, and ran up to slap him on the back.

  ‘Good for you, Fowlie.’

  ‘You showed him.’

  ‘What a beauty of a punch!’

  ‘You damn near KO’d him.’

  When the clamour died down, and another sergeant came to finish the drill, he purposely avoided catching Willie’s eye. The expression on his weatherbeaten face, however, was almost as if he admired what the recruit had done but could not tell him so. Pat Michie’s gratitude went much further, and was so embarrassing that Willie had to laugh off his ‘heroism’. He felt much happier now than he had felt for some considerable time and couldn’t understand why until it dawned on him one night in bed, that he had defended another human being weaker than himself as he used to do with Poopie Grant. It didn’t quite make up for not saving his boyhood chum from his final ordeal, but it was certainly helping.

  What Poopie had told him about his basic training was as near the truth as he could have got, Willie discovered. Route marches, hours of drill, weaponry instructions, guard duty – and only a few hours’ sleep every night on a most uncomfortable trestle bed. In the morning, before the crack of dawn even, the bugler took a delight in loosing off Reveille, and there followed a mad rush to the ablutions.

  Although he was well aware that his manner of speaking earned him the nickname ‘Clever Dick’, Willie didn’t care. They could make fun of him as much as they liked; at least they would not be able to find fault with his stamina. He hadn’t been a molly-coddled child. He’d been brought up in a working-class household, with probably a lot less going for him than some of the others. No amount of drills or marches would be too much for him. He was there to do everything that was asked of him, and to work off the guilt over Poopie’s death that he was certain would eat at him for years. Only when he had done something of outstanding bravery would he feel free of that guilt.

  When their basic training was almost over and they were given the dates of their first leave, Willie purposely did not tell Millie in his letter exactly when he would be arriving home. He merely wrote, ‘on the 23rd’, and hoped that she wouldn’t try meeting every train and bus. As it happened, his whole unit had been posted to Redford base outside Edinburgh because there had been an invasion scare.

  It was more than a week later, then, that he swung his kitbag off the train at Aberdeen and went straight to the large destination board in the centre of the Joint Station, so-called because all the smaller railway companies – North of Scotland, Highland, London Scottish and so on – had amalgamated into one terminal for the London North Eastern Railway. Learning that the first train to go through Udny Station was not for three hours yet, he wandered over to the small tearoom to have some sustenance. The short journey from Redford to Edinburgh had been bad enough with about forty soldiers going home on belated leave more than filling the labouring bus, but the train from Edinburgh to Aberdeen had been a thousand times worse. It had apparently been packed from London, with more and more travellers, civilians as well as servicemen, joining at each stop on the way north. Why hadn’t they paid heed to the posters up all over the place – ‘IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY?’

  By the time he had boarded the train there were no seats whatsoever, hardly any room in the corridors, with somnolent bodies packed like sardines, even in the toilets, although quite a fair amount had got off when he got on at Waverley. After Dundee, however, the crush thinned out, and gradually most of the remaining passengers had found a seat. He hadn’t been lucky until they stopped at Montrose, and by Jove he was glad of the rest.

  Realising that the small café had filled up, Willie took himself out to one of the seats provided in the main part of the station, and thankfully stretched out with his kitbag as a pillow. Two and a half hours later, the bustle of moving travellers alerted him to why he was there, and with a weary sigh, he got up and made his way to the gate of the platform he needed. For a scary moment he could not find his travel warrant, then he recalled, with a rush of relief, shoving it inside his cap for safety, and in another few minutes he was seated in the short train that would take him to Udny Station.

  Very soon, the clickety-clack, clickety-clack, the accompanying choo-chooing and the rhythmic swaying motion lulled him to sleep again. Only the stationmaster/porter’s strident bawl of ‘Udny! Udny!’ brought him abruptly back to consciousness.

  After telling his father something of what he’d been doing, and answering his mother’s questions as best he could without mentioning the gruelling instructions he’d had in the use of rifles, bayonets and other types of weapons, including grenades, he spent most of his first two days catching up on lost sleep and giving Jake a hand with whatever task he was doing. It was quite a comfortable feeling to be working alongside his father, but he knew that he wouldn’t have enjoyed it as a full-time job. He spoke now of things he couldn’t tell his mother; of how he was tired of training, of how much he wanted to be fighting the enemy not wasting time on cleaning latrines; of standing guard duty; of having to knuckle under the blatant bullying of some of the sergeants.

  ‘But you must’ve ken’t the army wasna a place where you could dae what you liked,’ Jake reminded him. ‘There has to be discipline. There has to be training, or how would you ken what to dae if we was invaded? Your Mam was maybe right. I wasna hard enough on you when you was little.’

  ‘She was likely right,’ Willie laughed. ‘I suppose I must have driven her mad with the things I did.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ Jake admitted, ‘but you wasna a wicked laddie. You never meant to hurt naebody. You was just illtricket, like a lot o’ ither loons.’

  Discussing the scrapes that the boy had got into – the shoe polish, the hens, the kitten, the schoolboy fights, the episode with the bike that had precipitated a murder hunt – they had been laughing until that last incident reminded Willie of the real murder that had followed some years later. ‘There’s never been any news about Gordie Brodie? He’s never been found?’

  His face sobering, Jake shook his head. ‘Never a word. I think it’s been swept under the carpet.’

  ‘But the police know he killed Connie. I told them myself.’

  ‘I ken it was him, an’ Jeemsie Cooper’s sure it was him, but the ’tecs … They’ve got it into their heids you just thocht it was him you seen.
They think you was ower young to be sure, an’ they’ve stopped lookin’ for him.’

  ‘I haven’t stopped looking,’ Willie declared. ‘Everywhere I go, I keep an eye out for him. He can’t escape for ever.’

  ‘I hope you’re richt, but for ony sake dinna say onything to your mother. She’s never got ower it. An’ Becky’s never written, so she doesna ken where she is, an’ you’re nae exactly …’

  Ashamed at neglecting such a duty, Willie promised to write more often. He hadn’t really thought about his mother’s situation. Not one of her three children left to comfort her in her encroaching old age. She couldn’t be much more than fifty, yet she looked a lot older. Was he really the cause of all those wrinkles on her brow, of her steadily increasing grey hairs, of her dull, weary eyes?

  Having run out of conversations to have with his parents, Willie started a round of visiting. His first call was on Beenie Middleton, the woman who had brought him into the world. She, too, was looking much older, but her face lit up to see him. ‘Come awa’ in, laddie, the kettle’s just bilin’. Did you ken my Malcie’s been called up? He’s in the Ordnance Corps, but he’s nae affa happy.’

  Remembering Malcolm Middleton’s history of long periods of doing nothing between extra-short terms of employment, Willie wasn’t surprised to hear this. ‘He’ll get used to it, though. It’s not such a bad life.’

  ‘You must’ve ken’t a big difference, though, you being at the university an’ a’ your learnin’. Was you nae surprised? Did you nae feel let doon?’

  ‘I suppose I did, for a while, but you’ve just got to tell yourself if that’s the way it has to be, that’s how it’s got to be. We’re all in the same boat.’

  ‘My Malcie doesna like hard work, that’s what’s wrang wi’ him. He’s a lazy bugger, just like his Da.’ She roared with laughter now.

  Willie knew that her husband had always been a drunkard and had never held down a job for long until he’d come to Wester Burnton, where he seemed to have come to his senses as far as work was concerned, though he still liked a good drink.

  After about an hour, he bade Beenie goodbye and promised to come to see her again if he had time. He headed next to Mrs Grant’s house, passing several cottages, outside one of which were two dirty-faced little boys intent on their game of marbles, or ‘bools’ as Willie knew they were called here. Outside another were three dainty little girls in bare feet tucking their dolls into cardboard boxes for cots, he presumed, or maybe prams. It was great what a child’s imagination could do. He felt a flash of resentment at the detectives for not believing what he’d told them. He had been fifteen years old, not a child. At any rate, not young enough to be imagining seeing somebody who wasn’t there.

  Last in the group of this six of the houses provided by Johnny McIntyre for his workers and their families, was the home of the Grants. Willie had swithered about going there, although he knew he should tender his condolences to Poopie’s mother. There was a two- or three-year-old sitting on the doorstep eating a thick slice of bread, his mouth already covered in jam, and he wondered if this was a grandchild or fostered. He could vaguely remember that Tibby Grant had occasionally taken care of other people’s children in cases of illness or families being split up.

  The boy’s eyes followed him as he opened the gate and walked up the long garden path, staring up at him silently as he knocked on the door.

  ‘Hi, kid,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘Were you hungry?’

  His only answer was a nod, but it didn’t matter, as Tibby came to the door cleaning her floury hands on a huge white apron – or, to be absolutely accurate, on a white apron liberally spotted with red jam and brown stains that could have been gravy. Her straggly grey hair had escaped from most of its hairpins and was inching down her crepey neck.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Willie Fowlie! Oh, loon, it’s good to see you. You’re lookin’ weel. Life in the Gordons must be agreein’ wi’ you.’

  ‘Nae so bad,’ he laughed, lapsing into his old way of speaking. He felt an affinity with this woman, more than he had ever felt for his own mother, and to be truthful he had probably spent more time in this house than in his own when he was a boy. ‘How are you, Mrs Grant?’

  She eyed him reflectively. ‘I could say I was fine. I could even say I wasna so bad, but the truth is, I just tak’ each day as it comes. I dinna like bein’ on my ain for ony length o’ time. I need to feel somebody’s near me, auld or young, it doesna matter. That’s why I foster bairns. I’ve had three fostered on me since Poopie … but I’ve got my Daisy’s twa the now till she’s on her feet again efter this last ane. Leslie, that’s him playin’ oot by, he’s the youngest, and Greggie, her auldest, he’s at the school.’

  Her eyes losing the faint sparkle that had appeared while she was speaking of her grandsons, her voice trailed away, but with a start, she said, ‘Dinna mind me, Willie, lad. It comes on me that sudden whiles. I’ve gotten ower him, richt enough, but there’s never a day gans by that I dinna think on him.’

  ‘It’s only natural, Mrs Grant.’

  ‘Losh, Willie. You surely ken me weel enough to cry me Tibby. Good God, loon, I’ve dichted your neb, I’ve cleaned your scratted knees an’ put iodine on them, I’ve gi’en you boseys when you fell …’ Her voice wavered slightly. ‘Willie, you was like anither son to me, an’ I’m gled you still want to come to see me. You’re a good loon, a real good loon, an’ I ken fine it was for my Poopie you gi’ed up your education and jined up.’

  He put out his arms to hold her when she burst into tears, patting her back and making soothing noises. He knew exactly how she was feeling; hadn’t he felt like this ever since he’d heard about his old pal’s death? In that moment, as his own tears overtook his fragile composure, it dawned on him that while he, a young man, stood with his arms round a woman who must be around sixty, at least, this must be the first time either of them had been able to show the full, shattering depth of their sorrow for the soldier both of them had loved, in spite of all his faults.

  It was fully five minutes before the woman drew away. ‘My, Willie, I dinna ken what you must be thinkin’ o’ me. I’m a silly, sentimental aul’ fool.’

  ‘You’re not silly, Tibby, and you’re not old nor a fool. And there’s nothing wrong in being sentimental,’ he assured her. ‘The world would be a better place if more people showed some sentiment now and then.’

  She wiped her nose with a hankie that had seen better days. ‘Well, maybe you’re right, lad, but there’s a time and a place for a’thing, as the minister said to the verger when he catched him peein’ on the roses.’ She dashed away the last vestiges of her tears and gave a raucous laugh. ‘Your Ma would ha’e a fit if she heard what I’m sayin’ till her darlin’ boy.’

  ‘I’m not her darling boy – never was. It was her two girls she loved.’

  ‘Poor wumman. She hasna had her sorrows to seek, has she? She’s lost them baith, and I tell you this: I dinna ken how she got through that.’ Clearly wanting to avoid further dips into the slough of despond, she said, brightly, ‘What say you till a bowlie o’ broth?’

  ‘Aye,’ he grinned. ‘A bowlie o’ broth never goes wrang.’

  And so they enjoyed the thick soup – the kind that a spoon could stand up in – reminiscing about the things the two boys had done, and finding themselves laughing as heartily as they had been weeping a short time before.

  There were also little lapses into the sadness again, when other bits of the past came up, but on the whole they kept the light-heartedness throughout.

  The old wag-at-the-wa’ showed six o’clock before they noticed the time, even though Tibby’s older grandson had come home from school and the younger one had come in twice for a ‘piece an’ jam’. It was as though they were small interruptions that didn’t really interfere with the conversation. But the young man got to his feet now. ‘I’m sorry Tibby, but I’ll have to go. I’ve been out since breakfast time.’

  She, too, stood up. ‘A
ye, your Ma’ll be wonderin’ where you are, but you ken this? I’ve really enjoyed your visit. It’s cheered me up like naething else would’ve daen. I canna thank you enough for mindin’ on an auld wife.’

  ‘I’ve really enjoyed it as well, Tibby, and if I’ve got time I’ll come again before I go back.’ He held out his hand at the door, but she grabbed his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.

  Not another word was spoken, and he walked down the path patting the boys on the head when they came running up to ask their grandmother if their supper would be long.

  He heard the door being shut, but his heart was much lighter on his way home than it had been when he left in the morning. Emily, of course, was curious to know where he had been, and he told her most of what had been said in both houses. ‘I think Beenie’s a bit worried about Malcie. He doesn’t like the army, and you know what he was like. I think she imagines him deserting and being put in prison, or something like that, but Malcie always manages to come out smelling of roses, doesn’t he? Not like poor Poopie.’

  ‘And how did you think Tibby was managing?’ Emily wanted to know.

  He didn’t tell her anything other than, ‘She says she’s fine, but I think she’s putting a brave face on it. We had a nice long chat, put the world to rights.’

  Emily couldn’t help but smile at this. ‘You two would be able to do that, right enough. You’ve both got plenty to say.’

  Jake came in at that moment, and the two men discussed the fortunes of the war, criticising this general for his tactics, that one for not having thought out his plan properly, occasionally praising some small victory over the Germans, until Emily said, rather sourly, ‘That’s enough war talk. It’s bad enough getting it all the time in the paper and on the wireless, but not at my own table.’

  Jake winked at Willie, and then said, in an exaggerated English accent, ‘So what do you think of the price we’re getting for potatoes now?’ which made the two men double up, but Emily drew in her lips. ‘If you think that’s funny, you’ve got minds like ten-year-olds.’