Betty had been a blue baby. The daughter of our new neighbours, the Millers, she had been born with a hole in her heart and weighing a mere few pounds. Her first few months had been spent wrapped in cotton wool and it was touch and go whether she would survive the crucial initial weeks after her handicapped start in life. But she did survive and when I first met her she was almost eleven years old, a year younger than me.
We were now firmly established in our new domain in Moncur Crescent and were slowly becoming acquainted with our new neighbours. Betty resembled a fragile, porcelain doll. Her thin face had, in my first ignorant opinion, a creamy pallor with twin red spots on her cheeks and lips that always had a bluish tinge. The Millers were a lovely couple. Almost equal in height, around five foot two inches, with round, cheery faces, it was difficult to put an age on them. To my young eyes, anyone over twenty was ancient but I guessed they must have been in their fifties.
One day Mrs Miller took Mum aside when they met in the close. ‘Will you make sure your lassie doesn’t encourage Betty into strenuous games?’ she asked. ‘Betty isn’t allowed to run or jump about.’
Mum made sure I got the message loud and clear. In her opinion, George and I were still noisy, rumbustious individuals with ravenous appetites to match. The fact that we were always growing out of our clothes was another permanent worry.
Betty was a pupil at Fairmuir School, which catered for the physically handicapped, and she attended only the morning session. At the time I envied this arrangement because I was now in the final few months at Rosebank School while George was in Primary Five. The dreaded Qualifying Examination was looming on my horizon. This exam sorted out the clever pupils from the not-so-bright or downright dim and was the yardstick for the entire length of your secondary education. Even then it was regarded as unfair and unequal.
Mr Cuthbert, our teacher, was drumming subjects and facts into our protesting brains like a constant hammer against a brick wall. Whether we retained a fraction of it was another matter. He stood before the class on the day before the exam and told us to have a quiet night at home in order to train our young minds on the task ahead. This would be the most important day in our primary education, he said. This was obviously good advice but it was clear he hadn’t reckoned with a gremlin in the works and that the best of plans can go awry. He didn’t live at 14 Moncur Crescent.
It all began when we arrived home from school. Betty, who had been standing at the top of the street, saw us and began running in order to catch up with us, because we were racing each other home in order to be the first one with the bread and jam. We didn’t see her but by the time she reached the close, she was sucking in great gulps of air and her lips were almost purple.
Mrs Miller almost fainted when we hammered on her door and she immediately rounded on me. ‘What did Eh tell you? Betty can’t run around like you two. Heavens! You’re just like a horse galloping about.’
The woman was beside herself with worry until the doctor arrived and I was dreading Mum’s return from the mill. I reckoned I would end up with a smack or a severe telling-off. Neither of these would be conducive to a quiet, contemplative night at home.
When Mum eventually arrived home, I immediately leapt to my own defence, protesting my innocence, with George backing me up. To my amazement, she didn’t make a big issue of it but I was told to go and apologise to our neighbour. I thought this a bit unfair, considering I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I recalled Grandad often saying, ‘You think quickly with your head but you have to make a journey around your heart.’ This statement was certainly true at this point because, although my head was full of innocence, my heart was saying something different – that I had had a big fright.
Betty was sleeping peacefully in her room and I was thankful to see her looking pale but normal. Her parents sat hunched up in their large, well-upholstered armchairs, grateful that the doctor had found no lasting damage other than extreme breathlessness.
I began to speak but Betty’s mum stopped me. ‘Eh ken now it wasn’t your fault. It was just that Eh was so worried. Eh’m going to have to warn Betty that she can’t run about like you and your brother and she’ll just have to accept it.’
I almost burst into tears at this sad statement. I had never given a thought to anyone being different from me or my friends. One of the neighbours in our old street had had a toddler with Down’s Syndrome or Mongolism as the women in the street used to refer to it. But I hardly saw him and he died before reaching school age. I was now faced with a different world of permanent disability and I knew that a special eye would have to be kept on any activities that Betty was involved in.
As it turned out, the day’s drama was far from over. Later that evening while I was trying some juvenile meditation, our cat decided to surprise us by producing a litter of kittens. This cat had been a thin, waif-like stray who landed on our windowsill a couple of weeks earlier. Mum, being kind-hearted, had taken it in.
There I was, trying to cram as much learning into my head as was humanly possible when Mum rushed into the living room and began to rummage in the corner cupboard. She reappeared with a small cardboard box and an old blanket, calling out to me in the passing to come and help her.
Toots, the cat, had decided that the foot of the bed was the ideal place to give birth and one kitten was already born by the time we lifted her into her new cardboard abode. She gave us a baleful look as if suggesting the cold box was no substitute for the mound of warm blankets but, once she was installed by the side of the fire, she accepted it. With the cat now making strange mewing sounds and Mum fussing around, it was impossible to return to any further study.
Anyway, I was sent to strip the bed. ‘Make sure you sponge the blankets even although there’s only a wee mark,’ said Mum. ‘Thankfully, Eh caught her in time.’ She cried aloud in dismay as another kitten made its entrance into our already impoverished lives.
The stain was barely noticeable and the blanket was soon hanging over the backs of two chairs, the damp patch slowly steaming in front of the fire. As it was, there were only two kittens and that was a relief to Mum, me and Toots.
Because of all this kerfuffle, George and I slept in the next morning. Mum had wakened me at six-thirty as usual before heading off to work but I had fallen asleep again. As a result, we had to say a quick cheerio to Toots and family before darting down the Hilltown towards the school. We were passing the small sweet factory at the top of Tulloch Crescent when the school bell went. Rosebank School had separate entrances for boys and girls. The boys’ gate was in Rose Lane, another 500 yards or so from my gate.
Mum always insisted that I accompany George to the gate and it was a chore I hated. I thought he was old enough to see himself to the playground but it was one of Mum’s rules and had to be obeyed. That particular morning, the most important day in my scholastic life, I knew I couldn’t be late. Without hesitation I demanded that he should come through the girls’ gate.
He was appalled. ‘What, go past all the lassies?’ he spluttered, his childish face red and obstinate.
With the snake-like queues of children all marching relentlessly towards the open school doors I had no option but to wrap my trench coat around him and pull him across the playground, his little, protesting legs barely touching the ground. Amid sniggering catcalls from some of the boys, he glared indignantly at me before jumping the low wall and running towards his classmates.
I had no time to worry about his trivial hurt feelings because I had problems of my own – the exam and my lack of studying. To make matters worse, it was becoming clear from all the lively chatter in the classroom that quite a few of the bright sparks had indeed spent the evening doing nothing but getting into the right frame of mind.
I sat beside Grace and Ruth, who were discussing their chances of passing the exam. ‘Did you manage to study last night?’ they enquired, gazing at me with button-bright eyes.
I was tempted to tell the truth but I didn’t think they would be interested in Betty’s drama or the minutiae of our feline population explosion. I just nodded, hoping desperately that all the scholastic facts from the past year had somehow managed to penetrate and cling to the recesses of my brain. At that moment I had to admit it was doubtful.
The exam soon began in earnest as a flurry of bags and books were quietly tucked out of sight. An unnatural quietness descended on the room, only to be broken by the scraping of pens against paper and the occasional, barely audible groan of despair. At dinnertime we all filed into the dining hall, our faces glum and all the bright chatter from the top class absent. We weren’t so much shell-shocked as exam-exhausted. Although I didn’t know it then, I was about to be faced by another vexing situation.
Ever since Grandad’s death, we had been taking school dinners and during that long period, even in times of extreme hunger, I could never stomach sago pudding. Perhaps it was the long-distant memory of the horrible, lumpy porridge at Duncarse Home. The dinner lady knew never to give me any and I was quite content to sit at an empty space while all around me my classmates wolfed down this horrible pudding. At least that was the situation until this stressful day when Miss Edwards overheard the woman saying, ‘Oh, Eh just forgot, you never eat sago.’
The teacher’s face was puce with fury. ‘Never eat sago? Am I hearing this correctly, young madam?’ At this point, everyone within earshot stopped scooping spoonfuls into their mouths to listen.
‘Bring over a plate of sago, please,’ Miss Edwards demanded of the open-mouthed server, who protested loudly.
‘It doesn’t matter if someone dislikes something – there’s aye someone who wants a second helping.’
In spite of this backing, the plate was duly placed in front of me. I gazed blankly at it, wishing this awful day was over. It didn’t help that my companions, with heads bent low, dutifully scraped their plates clean, as if to emphasise my full plate. By now the mound of sago was growing colder by the minute, taking on a slightly green, bilious appearance. Miss Edwards stood in an uncompromising attitude behind my back while the two dinner ladies muttered under their breaths.
‘Blinking shame, making someone eat something they don’t like. After all, some things give me the boak,’ said one, while her pal nodded in agreement.
One thing was clear. I was now beginning to realise that if I couldn’t bear to eat sago hot, then it would take a general anaesthetic for me to eat it cold. I considered scooping it into something but, not having had the foresight to arm myself with a hankie or bit of newspaper, I was stymied. It was the afternoon class bell that saved me. Miss Edwards grabbed me by the collar and yelled, ‘Get out! And don’t ever let me see you refuse food again!’
The dinner ladies gave small, satisfied smiles as I gratefully escaped but I was scared to acknowledge them in case my tormentor was still watching.
George was waiting for me at four o’clock, a furious look on his face, but I was too fed up to argue with him. It had been a day to remember all right. I wasn’t sure how well I had done in the exam. Had I passed it?
There was better news about Betty, however. Although the blue tinge was still visible around her lips, she was sitting up in bed with a huge feather eiderdown around her frail shoulders. She was eager to hear about my day and was almost agog when I mentioned the fiasco at dinnertime. She laughed at my exaggerated impression of the teacher, although I didn’t add that there had been precious little to laugh about at the time. Distance in this case lent boldness. Then she became wistful. ‘Eh wish Eh went tae the same school as you. You’re really lucky,’ she said, looking like a brittle, fragile doll.
This heartfelt statement suddenly made me feel ashamed of my pathetic moans, especially about something as trivial as a plate of sago, but at that time I really thought Betty would get stronger. It was all a matter of taking life easy, building up her strength and then she would be like George and me.
A few weeks later, Mr Cuthbert stood in front of the class with a list in his hands, reading out the names of pupils who had passed the dreaded ‘Quali’. Most of us had passed, thank the Lord. We were now headed for Rockwell Secondary School after the summer holiday. Auntie Nora gave me a new gym tunic that was too big for my cousin Eleanor. One small flaw was the Harris Academy braid sewn around the square neckline. Still, I had seven weeks to unpick it.