The Back of Beyond (8 page)

‘Bella says they've been invited but they can't afford the train fare.'

‘They could take the boat, like Alistair and Dougal.'

‘She says she's terrified of water. The very idea of being on a boat makes her sick.'

Carrie nodded. ‘That'll just be an excuse. She likely doesna want to go. If I'd a son, I wouldna like to see him getting led up the garden path by some painted London trollop that had trapped him into it.'

The final phrase comforted Lexie. Alistair
had
been trapped into it. He would never look at another girl unless she'd put herself out to catch him, and poor Al, he didn't like hurting folk. Still, it couldn't last. A marriage without love never did, and he'd come back to Forvit ready to fall into the arms of the girl he could trust, the girl he knew did love him, the girl who would never stop loving him.

Assuring herself of this, she suddenly felt much better. ‘Ach, it's his life and he'll just have to get on with it, the same as I'll have to get on with mine. Do you fancy a cheese pudding for your supper?'

Carrie slept even less than normal that night. Lexie was taking Alistair's wedding far too calmly. She couldn't still think he'd come back to her? A marriage was for life, no matter how bad it was. This was proof that Alistair had meant it when he said he was going to settle in London and Lexie would just have to accept it. He wasn't the kind of man who would break the vows he'd have to make.

Alec had stood by his vows, Carrie told herself, until the memory of what he had done hit her again, then something occurred to her that hadn't entered her head before. Had Tom Birnie told him she would never get better of what ailed her? Had he not been able to bear the thought of her dying and him having to face life without her? Aye, that was it. That was why he had run away.

The mental and physical suffering she had endured since that terrible night had made her neurotic and overemotional, and the tears of relief that burst from her now verged on the hysterical, but in no time at all Lexie was there with her, cradling her like she was a bairn, shushing her and telling her not to worry.

‘If you think I'll go to pieces because Alistair Ritchie's taking a wife, you're wrong, Mam! It was a shock at first, but I'm over it, and everything's going to be all right. Shut your eyes now and sleep, like a good lass.'

Lexie lay alongside her mother for the rest of the night, assuring herself, over and over again, that everything
would
be all right for her. Alistair was being pushed into a union he didn't want but he would soon realize who he really loved. He'd come back to her within a year or two, and he'd make up for all the time he'd been away.

Chapter 5

‘You are looking very sad today, Alistair.' Manny regarded his assistant shrewdly. ‘Did you have a disagreement with your young lady last night?'

‘It's nothing to do with Gwen. It's a letter I got from my mother this morning. She says they can't afford to come to our wedding.'

‘Ah, that explains it! You have been so looking forward to seeing them, but do not forget that it is a long long way for them to come.'

‘I know, but I thought …' He swallowed abruptly.

‘How long is it since you left home?'

‘It'll be three years come October.' Alistair knuckled his eyes as if to rid them of an irritation – an almost nineteen-year-old man dared not be seen to cry – then went on, ‘But there it is … one of the hurdles life sometimes puts in our paths.'

‘You are too young for such philosophy, my boy.' Manny felt so deeply for him that he could not concentrate on the market stalls that forenoon. He had intended to look for something unique as a wedding gift, but nothing he saw fitted the bill, and he gave up well before midday.

On his way back to his shop, however, a wonderful idea struck him. It would be a gift
par excellence
, a gift sure to please Alistair – and seeing him truly happy was certain to please his bride. But – and it was a but looming menacingly in the wings – would the boy accept it as it was meant, or would he consider it a hand-out? He was so touchy about that sort of thing.

When he entered his premises, the pawnbroker locked the door and turned the cardboard placard to ‘CLOSED', saying, ‘I want to talk to you without anyone interrupting us.'

Perplexed and apprehensive, Alistair followed him into the little back room – Manny's bedroom, living room and kitchen, the lavatory was in the tiny back yard – where they usually sat to have their lunch-time snack, always on the alert in case a customer walked into the shop, although there was no risk of that today.

Many waited until a mug of tea was set in front of him. ‘I have been doing some thinking, Alistair,' he began, ‘and don't go jumping in bull-headed until I have finished what I have to say. Unhappiness is not a good companion, nor is it conducive to full attention to whatever work is in hand, and that applies to me as well as to you. I have been puzzling over what to give you as a wedding gift …'

‘There's no need for you to give us anything!' Alistair butted in.

‘There is perhaps no need, but it is something I want to do. When a young couple are setting up house, it is expected that relatives and friends will give bed linen, kitchen utensils, anything which would be of use in a home, but it is different in your case. You will be living in a hotel, with everything you need readily available to you, and so I have been looking for something, an antique perhaps, I was not sure what but I was sure that I would know it was right when I came across it. Sadly, I have seen nothing.'

‘It doesn't matter, Manny,' Alistair muttered as the old man took a sip of tea. ‘We don't need …'

‘Let me finish,' his employer scolded. ‘On the way back, it came to me – a gift without parallel! Return tickets to London for your parents and sister.'

Alistair shook his head angrily. ‘No, I can't let you do that, Manny.'

‘You are flinging my gift back in my face, hmm? I believe it to be the best I could possibly have thought of, and the milk has been spilt …' He smiled at the young man's bewilderment. ‘The tickets are already bought and the seats reserved. You see, hmm? Consider, also, how your Gwen would feel if none of your family comes to your wedding. She will not want a groom standing miserably by her side wishing that his mother was there. Furthermore, so that she will not feel left out, she can come to the shop and choose a necklace or something of the kind which will be my gift to her.'

Despite his advanced age, Alistair could no longer hold back the tears, but they were tears of happiness, of gratitude, of love for this old man who had been like a father to him since the very day they met.

The twenty-eighth day of September 1932 dawned as bright and warm as a day in the middle of July, and there was pandemonium in the Crocker household as four adults made themselves ready for the big occasion – Rosie Jenkins having decided that it would be nice to invite the grooms' landlady and her husband as guests. Alistair would have loved to ask Manny, too, but he could see that it would cause difficulties, because Dougal couldn't invite all the people who worked with him. With only one bathroom – there was a dividing wall between it and the lavatory, thankfully – Len said he'd do his ablutions in the scullery, as long as nobody came in and saw him washing his ‘naughty bits'.

Ivy joked that she wouldn't mind who saw her ‘naughty bits', which made them all laugh, although it gave Alistair cause to worry. He knew nothing of a woman's ‘naughty bits' and maybe Gwen wasn't as innocent as he thought. Hadn't Marge told Dougal ages ago that her sister had been let down by some bloke when she was younger? But she'd have told him, wouldn't she? She wasn't the kind to hide anything as serious as that. She was bound to know he would find out … on their wedding night. Tonight.

Ready first and waiting, a tight bundle of nerves, for Dougal to tie a satisfactory knot in his tie, Alistair's thoughts strayed to the previous evening, when they had met their families at King's Cross – the better-off Finnies had been quite happy to spend money on fares to see their son being married. The reunions had been very emotional after such a long separation, hugs and kisses (unusual for Scots) exchanged tearfully on the platform, and then they all piled into a large hackney carriage to be transported to Guilford Street, where Rosie had seen to making rooms ready for the important visitors.

The meeting of relatives and soon-to-be-in-laws had gone off very well, Alistair recalled, everyone taking to everyone else, and his mother had even found an opportunity to whisper that she was pleased he was marrying such a nice girl. ‘She'll make you a good wife,' she had added, ‘so you make sure you treat her right.' He would have married Gwen supposing the verdict had gone the other way, of course, but it was better that it was so favourable.

He was brought back to the present by Dougal's loud sigh of satisfaction. ‘Thank the Lord, that's it straight now. You know this, Ally, I'm in a right old state! I don't know how you can look so calm.'

‘Maybe I
look
calm,' Alistair mumbled, ‘but I don't
feel
calm.'

The last five minutes, waiting for the cab which would convey them to the Register Office where the ceremony was to take place, seemed an eternity to both young men, but Ivy, looking very smart in a midnight blue grosgrain suit and matching straw hat, stopped nerves getting the better of them. ‘I don't know what I'm going to do without you two handsome blokes,' she giggled. ‘I'll have nobody to share my bed now when you're away, Len.'

Knowing his wife's propensity for exaggeration, he gave a hearty guffaw. ‘They wouldn't have come anywhere near you, Ivy, and …' he pretended to scowl, ‘if they had, I'd have knocked their ruddy blocks off.'

Ivy chuckled again. ‘A girl can dream, can't she?'

The arrival of the taxi put an end to the conversation, and they were soon being borne as swiftly as possible through London's rush-hour traffic.

Breakfast was an embarrassing time in the hotel for at least four of the people round the table the following morning. As Dougal confided to Alistair on their way back from seeing their families off that evening, ‘I didn't think it would bother me, but I felt awful sitting there with them all knowing what Marge and me had been up to. Oh boy, what a time we had, hardly a wink of sleep all night. How did you get on?'

‘We were the same.' Alistair had no wish to discuss the rapturous hours he and Gwen had spent in their first taste of sexual intercourse, for he had discovered, to his infinite relief, that his bride was still a virgin.

‘My Mam and Dad were really taken with Marge,' Dougal observed after a minute.

‘Mine were taken with Gwen and all,' Alistair was happy to say. ‘It's a pity we're so far away, though. I'd have liked to show her round the Forvit area.'

‘I promised Mam I'd take Marge up for a holiday in the spring. We could all go together … oh no. The girls wouldn't get off at the same time, of course.'

‘I couldn't afford it, any road. Gwen wants us to save as much as we can, in case babies start coming … you know …?'

‘Oh, I see.' Dougal seemed taken aback at her planning for this at so early a stage.

‘I might manage to take her away somewhere for a few days, though – Kent, maybe. I've heard it's lovely there.'

‘Aye, that would be nice. Em … Ally, how d'you think we'll get on in the hotel?'

‘What d'you mean, get on?'

‘Well, we're bound to feel like two goldfish in a bowl with everybody watching us. I did tell Tiny I wanted to buy our own wee house, not too far away so Marge could still work for him, but he wouldn't hear of it.'

‘Ach, we'll get used to it.'

‘We'll have no privacy, that's what I'll miss.'

Alistair grinned. ‘We hadn't much privacy at Ivy's, either. She always liked to know everything we were doing.'

‘Aye well, but that was different. I wasn't wanting to take you to bed every spare minute you had, like I'll be with Marge.'

‘You knew what you were taking on, and you'll just have to put up with it.'

‘How did the wedding go?'

‘It was just perfect, Lexie.' Unaware that she was turning the screws on her listener's tortured heart, Bella Ritchie gave a full description of her visit to London, breaking off if another customer came in and carrying on again afterwards as if there had been no interruption. ‘It was different, wi' two brides. I thought they'd be dressed the same, being sisters, but they're nothing like each other. Dougal's wife, Marge, she's the bouncy kind, full o' life, and she's dark-haired like him, though I'd say hers is even curlier. Gwen, now, that's Alistair's wife, her hair's a lovely blonde, natural like yours, nae like some I saw doon there, and it shines pale gold in the electric light. Her face is thinner than her sister's and she's a lot quieter, but they're real nice lassies, though I didna understand half o' what they said, they spoke that quick. Mind you, they'd a job makin' my Willie oot, for he couldna think on the English for what he wanted to say.'

‘But you managed to get on with … Gwen?'

‘Nae bother! I couldna have wished for a better …' About to say ‘a better daughter-in-law', Bella finally remembered how attached Lexie had been to Alistair before he went away and caught her runaway tongue. ‘… a better day,' she substituted, clumsily. ‘Sun shining and an awful lot warmer than it is up here. And the Jenkinses is just like ony o' us. Nae side to them though they've got a fine big hotel. There's a younger sister, and all, Peggy her name is, and the three o' them work there, waitressing, cleaning the rooms and such like, good workers, they are.'

‘Oh aye?' Lexie felt obliged to make some kind of comment.

‘Rosie, their mother, she's a right nice soul, slim like them and quiet, but it's my opinion she rules the roost, though her man wouldna like folk to think that. He was the biggest surprise we got. You should have seen him, Lexie … a great fat mountain o' a man, and he does all the cooking sitting on a stool in the kitchen in the basement. The meal – the wedding breakfast they cried it though we didna sit doon till four o'clock – oh, I canna tell you how good it was. Willie said it was the kind o' soup he likes best, the kind you can stand your spoon up in, I canna tak' him nae place, then he said the fancy stuffing wi' the roasted turkey went round his heart like a hairy worm, and I coulda kicked him, but they seemed pleased aboot it.'

‘They likely took it as a compliment.'

‘Aye, and so it was meant … if they understood it.'

‘Was it a kirk wedding?'

‘No, no! It was in a Register Office, then back to the hotel in taxis. Mind, I'd've been happier if it had been a kirk wedding, but … ach, I suppose that's the English way o' doing it, and the registrar had us a' in tears at the gentle way he advised them to respect their vows, even Tiny, that's Alistair's father-in-law …'

‘Tiny?' Lexie gave a brittle laugh. ‘That's a funny name if he's so fat.'

‘It was a nickname he got in the army. To get back to my story, Gwen being the oldest daughter, her and Alistair was wed first – she'll be nineteen next month the same as him. Dougal was best man and young Peggy, I think she's fifteen or sixteen, she was bridesmaid for her two sisters, and Dougal had Alistair for
his
best man.'

‘What were the brides wearing?' The poor girl couldn't help but prolong the agony; she was so anxious to know as much as she could.

‘Well, Marge was in a sky-blue crepe-di-Chine dress, fitted bodice wi' a gored skirt – I was surprised she'd chose blue when her eyes are so dark brown, but it really suited her. Gwen looked a picture in a deep pink two-piece, moygashel, I think it was, and Peggy had a plain cream … no, darker than cream, more biscuit – plain linen kind of frock wi' a Peter Pan collar. Rosie had on a navy costume wi' a velvet collar, very smart, wi' a white blouse and a white straw hat.'

‘And was there any other guests … besides you three and the Finnies?'

‘Mr and Mrs Crocker was there, them the boys lodged wi', nice woman Ivy is, and all, maybe a bit owner much to say, but she was friendly enough. That was the lot.'

‘I'd have thought Alistair would've invited his boss. Alice said it was him that paid your fares.'

‘The Jenkinses just wanted a quiet family do. But Mr Isaacson – Manny, he likes to be cried – he came to King's Cross to introduce himself when we were coming hame; he's a proper gentleman. He's the first Jew I ever met, and if they're a' like him, I dinna ken where folk get the idea they're oot to rob everybody. I tried to tell him how grateful I was to him for sending us the tickets, but he said he'd bought them as a wedding present for Alistair, because he'd been that disappointed we werena going. That's the kind of man he is, like I said, a real gentleman. And Rosie and Tiny wouldna tak' onything for letting us bide there for the two nights, so we've had a right treat and it didna cost us a brass farthing.'