The scene at Jessie’s left Duncan with a dilemma: should he run after Kirsten, his lawfully wedded wife, or should he remain with his mum and try to salvage something of their relationship?
Before he could make a decision, Jessie hollered, ‘Like your useless faither before you, so you are!’
Duncan flinched at the venom in her voice, but asked meekly, ‘What do you mean, Mammy?’
‘That you too have abandoned us! Callously left your sisters and me to fend for ourselves!’
Duncan’s face was now a picture of perplexity. ‘Mammy,’ he began hesitantly, ‘Dad didnae desert us . . . he died.’
‘Aye, but he chose to gasp his last.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that other folk trip up and hit their heid on the causeway but they dinnae leave their family in the lurch. Naw, naw, they get up and get back on with their job.’
Duncan shook his head. He knew it was useless to argue with his mother, whose warped reasoning always suited her ‘all the apples fall on me’ view of the world. Instead, he said quietly, ‘Mammy, I ken Kirsten took me for a hurl but she’s young and she loves me and all she wanted to do was make sure I never strayed from her.’
‘That right? And what will happen now to our Nancy, who has nae chance of catching a man because of that damn birthmark that covers the whole of one side of her face?’ Jessie stopped to purse her lips and sighed deeply before adding, ‘And the blame for poor Nancy’s affliction is again aw down to your useless faither.’
‘How come, Mammy?’
‘Just that: Nancy’s affliction is his fault.’
Even more bewildered now, all Duncan could do was blow rhythmically out through his mouth.
‘You can huff and puff all you like, my boy, but your faither’s obsession with having beetroot with everything – even his beer – made his sperm the same damn colour as a beetroot! Then there’s Jane stretching herself to six feet. I mean, where’s she gonnae get a man to take her on? Even if she can change the electric light bulb without standing on a chair . . .’
Duncan knew it was pointless to challenge his mother. It was pointless to try to reason as to why his mother looked at things the way she did.
Truth be told, he already knew.
*
Jessie’s Story
Jessie’s father had died when she was just twelve years old – and he was thirty-three. Her mother, Maggie, had then sarcastically proclaimed that his early demise was due to his unwillingness to get out of his bed and toil longer than fourteen hours a day in all weathers for a mere pittance. To be truthful, when he was well enough to work, the few bawbees he earned couldn’t even purchase his family nourishing food and a warm, watertight shelter.
The foregoing being true, Maggie’s erstwhile husband’s demise meant that she had no choice but to become the family’s breadwinner. In addition to providing for herself, she had to support her three young daughters. The thought of the entire burden landing on her shoulders was just too much for Maggie. She therefore petitioned the Leith School Board, asking them to release Jessie, her eldest, from school. In her application she stated that her reason for this request was that Jessie would be required to keep the house while Maggie herself went out to work to support the family. What actually happened was that Maggie immediately took Jessie along to the Roperie and got her a job. Maggie’s contribution to the family’s woes then became seeking comfort from Red Biddy, the poorer of Leith’s preferred anaesthetics.
Tired and weary, young Jessie would come home at night to find her sisters, ten-year-old Agnes and nine-year-old Susie, waiting for her. She would rustle up something for them to eat, while their mother spent more and more time in the jug bar. Undeterred, Jessie grew determined that she and her sisters would pull through. By sheer guts and determination, she found the strength to survive in the harsh, cruel workplace to which her mother had sentenced her.
Time passed slowly, but eventually Agnes and Susie came of working age. Her sisters were, in Jessie’s opinion, too fine and delicate to work at the bleak and brutal Bath Street rope works; those rope works where you learned quickly or your life was intolerable. Indeed, holding on to her principles was the reason why Jessie had become such a feared virago. Yes, many a louse of a man learned to his physical detriment that he shouldn’t try coaxing handsome Jessie, or any of her less-able pals, to have a dinner-time tumble in the hemp bales. This being the case, Agnes was found work in Duncan’s of Edinburgh chocolate factory and Susie at Crawford’s Biscuits.
As the years passed, Maggie steadily drank herself to death. Jessie then decided it was time to find a healthy man to marry. One of her requirements being that he would come home to her and hand over his wage packet unopened!
She wasn’t really thinking of this solution to her problems as she trudged into work one particular day, but as she passed the dispatch bay two men hollered, ‘Look out, missus.’ Maggie turned to find a thick rolled-up rope mooring hawser bouncing off the loading platform.
Grabbing the arm of her young lassie companion, she hurtled herself and Nessie out of the path of the careering monster. Breathless and terrified, both of them landed in a thankful heap in the side-door entrance to the main offices. By that time the two men had scampered down from the platform and the taller of the two helped Nessie to her feet. The second man then tried to assist Jessie.
‘You some sort of an idiot?’ she screamed at the man.
‘It wasnae my fault,’ he protested.
‘Suppose you will be saying Nessie and me shouldnae have come into work this morning,’ she replied, roughly pushing the man’s hands off her chest, where they had wandered.
Once upright she realised she towered five inches above the man – a man she knew, albeit from a distance, because he worked in the dispatch area rather than the actual factory unit where she worked.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ the man continued, ‘and to make it up to you, could I buy you a drink after work?’
‘A drink? You want to buy me, a strict teetotaller, a drink? Huh. And what would your wife have to say about that?’
‘I havnae got one. Naw, naw, I have to bide in the Lodging House because I am all alone.’
Dougal Armstrong was not alone for long after that. He was just what Jessie was looking for: a man she could mould into her way of thinking. The bonus for Dougal was he got a home, was fed and was allowed to father Jessie’s three children.
And so life was easier for Jessie until Dougal tripped and fell, hitting his head on the pavement kerb. After his unfortunate demise Jessie was back to fending not for her sisters, now they had flown the coop, but for her three offspring as well as herself.
*
Duncan looked at his mother with sympathy. Jessie just shrugged and sighed. Today, yet again, she had been kicked in the teeth. The galling thing was this time it was her adored only son, Duncan, who had caused the hurt. Duncan who, by marrying that silly slip of a girl, had robbed her – robbed her of his own apprentice’s wage packet (often boosted by overtime).
Oh yes, up until now she’d relied on Duncan to bring in more than the two girls could earn together. She’d have to think of something, and fast, to keep the wolf from the door. Now was the time to make more of that wee money lending venture of hers.