I just knew that 1957 was going to be a bad year almost before it was a week old. Ally still had 500 days to go in the army while Mum, who had never got around to seeing the dentist after her painful abscess, was now suffering toothache on a daily basis.
Dr Jacob wasn’t sympathetic. ‘What did I tell you last April when your abscess cleared up?’ he said, giving her a severe look over the top of his glasses. ‘Do you remember I told you to go to the dentist?’
Mum looked abashed. ‘Well, Eh was going to go, Doctor, but Eh’ve got this awfy fear of dentists. Eh mean, it’s no just an ordinary fear but more a terrified feeling.’
‘Right then, I’ll write a prescription for one tablet and I want you to take it before going to the dentist. It will calm your fears,’ he said, writing on the prescription pad. His illegible handwriting resembled a spider that had somehow fallen into an ink pot before strolling over a pristine sheet of paper. ‘Now remember what I’ve said. Make an appointment with a dentist right away.’ He gave her a reproving look and his terrified patient got out of her chair.
Mum would have liked to ignore this ultimatum but she knew the situation couldn’t go much longer, not with the amount of pain she was suffering every day. In fact, she was forever pushing little wads of cotton wool impregnated with oil of cloves into her tooth.
Her colleague, Nellie, offered to go with her to the dentist at the top of the Hilltown and that support plus the magical tablet swayed her. However, when I came back from the factory that night, I discovered the dentist had taken all her teeth out and had ordered a set of dentures for her. She looked really ill but it was hard to determine at this point if this was caused by the painful gums or the effect of the gas anaesthetic. Nellie was sitting beside her and she was still dressed in her white works overall and white turban.
‘We went to the dentist right after work,’ said Nellie. ‘Your mum said she was feeling fine and she said she felt she was walking on air.’
Well, she certainly wasn’t walking on air now, I thought. The tranquilliser had now worn off and her face was very sore, just like it was on my wedding day.
‘Mum just needed to get the one tooth out, Nellie. Why did the dentist take them all out?’
‘He said that it was only a matter of time before they would need to be taken out so your mum said just to go ahead,’ said Nellie, who was obviously upset although it wasn’t her fault.
It was more the fault of the tablet that had given Mum her Dutch courage. Perhaps if she had been in her usual terrified way, then she may have stuck to the one tooth. By now she was awake and dying for a cup of tea. She looked pleased to see me and said to Nellie, ‘Now, you’re no to worry, Nellie, Eh’ll be fine by the morning. It was just that Eh felt really sick.’
Nellie looked relieved. ‘Oh that’s fine, Molly. Eh was worried about you but it’s been the effects of the gas.’
‘Aye, that’s what it was – the gas,’ Mum said, trying to convince herself that this discomfort was a temporary thing and that come the morning she would be bouncing back to work, albeit minus her teeth.
As it turned out, it was seven days later before she felt better and able to return to the dairy. Trying to provide a tempting selection of soft cooked food was a trial. Never a big eater at the best of times, she now seemed content to eat a few mouthfuls now and again, interspersed with her cups of tea.
I made eggs in every form – scrambled, boiled, poached and lightly fried – and fish in milk and ice cream till she was sick of the sight of it all. ‘Don’t make me another egg because Eh’m really scunnered with them, and Eh don’t like fish in milk. Just give it a wee fry but keep it soft and Eh should manage it. Eh really fancy some mince and a doughball as well,’ she said, while gazing at the piece of haddock lying in a pool of white sauce.
George was now in the second year of his apprenticeship but was still in the land of the pot-scrubbing, a fact that annoyed Mum intensely. ‘What a cheek that bakery has in making a laddie wash pots all day long! You would think now that he’s in his second year he would be getting shown how to do some baking. After all, he’s supposed to be a baker.’ She turned to me. ‘Was Ally washing pots as long as this?’
‘No, Mum, he wasn’t but he was in a small family-run bakery and Eh think you learn a lot more there than in a big concern like the Sosh. Also, Ally went to night school in Cleghorn Street.’
George was also attending this night school but he wasn’t getting the daily training, always being fobbed off with excuses and promises of learning the trade at a later date. As Mum said, ‘Aye, when he’s sixty.’
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Ally had too much to do. The 99th Field Bakery were turning out 25,000 loaves a day, all hand-made in a long trough then fired in diesel ovens that were portable and set on wheels.
Because of the terrorists, the island was under a strict curfew and the troops had a guideline of no-go areas which had to be adhered to. In order to avoid any ambushes from the EOKA fighters, the bread was delivered to the surrounding camps at night. It was transported to Nicosia and other places by an armed guard.
Fortunately, the beach wasn’t out of bounds to the soldiers and they spent all their spare time getting a lovely suntan and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. I now had a lovely collection of postcards and snapshots from the island and it seemed a shame that such a lovely place was at war with itself and the British government.
Aggie put in an appearance during the week of Mum’s illness. Our front door, as I have mentioned earlier, had a bell that was worked by twisting the handle. This action sent shrill squeaks into the rooms but for some unknown reason the sound was different under Aggie’s hand. Perhaps she twisted it too hard, but it always sounded like a cat being half-strangled and in the final throes of its ninth life. Anyway, Mum said weakly when she heard it, ‘Heavens! It’s Aggie and here’s me with no teeth yet.’
‘Could we no pretend to be out?’ I suggested, more in hope than anything. I wasn’t in the mood for Aggie’s chatter this night because I had just received a letter from Cyprus describing the dangerous night convoys and I was worried.
Mum was mortified. ‘She’ll know we’re in because she’ll have heard the television. No, you better let her in.’
By the time I reached the lobby, the half-strangled sound echoed loudly. As I hung up the musquash coat, the new version, I warned her, ‘Mum’s no feeling awfy well. She’s off her work.’
This was a mistake. I had forgotten that Aggie loved a good illness to chew over. Putting on her serious po-face, her ‘coffin expression’, as Mum called it, she approached the living room. ‘Oh, Molly, Eh’ve just heard you’re no well …’ She suddenly stopped, with her mouth open, ‘Heavens! Where’s your teeth?’
Mum was annoyed. ‘Where do you think they are? Eh got them out at the dentist’s, didn’t Eh?’
‘Oh, you don’t look well and you’ve got a right yellow look! Almost as if you’ve got the jaundice,’ said Aggie in her usual tactful manner.
‘That’s probably because of all the eggs Eh’ve had. Eh’m getting fed up with them. Forty different ways of cooking them as well and that’s enough to make anyone yellow.’
Aggie, who caught the exasperation in Mum’s voice, turned to me. ‘Well, how’s married life treating you?’
I almost said that since the April of the previous year, I had seen my husband for a total of thirty days and he was now away to a spot where mean-looking, gun-shooting Dead-eye Dicks and terrorists seemed to lurking under every bush; that servicemen were being shot in the street and death lurked around every corner. But I didn’t. Instead, I just smiled and said, ‘It’s fine, Aggie.’
I caught Mum’s eye and she was about to say something about my innocuous reply but I glared at her. ‘How’s your family, Aggie?’ she said instead.
Every time Aggie was on the point of boasting, she always gave a deep sigh and visibly swelled, her entire body filling with maternal pride. ‘Wait till Eh tell you my news!’ she said, glancing at us both, her head swivelling with each glance. ‘Babs has met a man!’
‘What do you mean, “met a man”? Surely they have around sixty million men in America, give or take a million or two, and most of them will be staying in California. You’ve said so yourself Aggie,’ said Mum.
‘Naw, naw, Molly, Eh mean met a man!’ she emphasised, stressing the last three words.
‘Oh, Eh see. She’s met one romantically?’
‘Aye, that’s what Eh do mean and no only has she met him but he’s asked her out for a date.’
She sat back in her chair, looking really pleased with herself. I caught Mum’s eye once more. I could have been wrong but I was sure she was about to say something about a palm tree and dates. I gave her another warning look and she blew her nose to cover up her expression.
Aggie asked if she had a cold. ‘You have to be very careful of getting a cold, especially when you get your teeth out. It can affect your nerves and give you terrible pains in the head.’ She stopped briefly and looked a bit confused. ‘Now where was Eh? Oh aye, Babs has been asked out by the wonderful man who works beside her in the same company. Marvin also works for this company. Well, he asked her out for a date. That’s an American term for going out to the movies or to a dance.’
When she stopped for breath, I almost added that it wasn’t only the cold that gave you a pain in the head. There was a certain person who had the same effect and she owned a musquash coat.
‘Now, Maureen,’ she said, taking me completely by surprise, ‘when do you think your man will get his next leave?’
‘He’ll no get one, Aggie. The next time Eh see him will be when his National Service is finished.’
She looked flabbergasted. ‘What? Do you mean in May 1958? In over fifteen months’ time?’
Or 460 days, I thought, which made it seem less. ‘That’s right. Cyprus is packed with troops now and the bakers have to make all this bread to feed them. Nobody seems to know what the position is.’
‘Well, Eh really thought we were going to have another war when Suez was invaded but it seems to have fizzled out now. Then there’s that awfy carry-on in Hungary. The Russians are a mean-looking lot. Did you see the massacres on the television news? It fair makes you shudder,’ she said, shaking her head at the thought of the black-and-white, grainy images on the television. ‘Meh man was saying that a young chap who works beside him is dead keen to go out to Hungary to fight with the freedom fighters. But the Red Army have tanks and machine guns and bombs and everything, so how can a wee chap who drives a tramcar help over there?’
It was certainly a worrying time. One girl I worked beside in the factory was, like me, waiting patiently for the return of her National Serviceman husband. His service was over but he still hadn’t been discharged. With every extra day that passed, she convinced herself that something was wrong, almost as if the big Western powers had something up their sleeve.
By now I had a headache and I shuddered to think how Mum was feeling but Aggie was still in full flow. ‘Senga and Marvin have got another car and it’s a Cadillac. It’s about as long as this room and it does ten miles to the gallon.’
Mum wasn’t going to let her off with this elaboration. ‘You can’t have a car as long as that. Heavens! The roads wouldn’t be wide enough for them all.’
‘Eh’m telling you, Senga says it’s as long as her lounge and her lounge is about the same size as this room,’ She glanced around the walls as if mentally measuring them. ‘But Senga’s house is differently decorated. Of course, she’s younger than you, Molly, so her tastes are far more modern and up to date.’
As usual she was on her feet a good ten minutes before she asked for her coat, her hand on the door handle. ‘Well, Eh better be hitting the road or meh man will wonder where Eh am. He’s aye telling me no to leave him on his own but Eh tell him no to be so daft.’
After she had gone, Mum said wearily that Mr Robb must be nuts not to treasure this short time on his own, spent in peaceful contemplation. I felt a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, one that I had been experiencing over the past few months. Perhaps it was something to do with the amount of days Ally still had to do in the army. Or maybe it was my job. There was nothing I could do about the army but maybe I could change my job. That at least was an option.
Then I found out that how strange life can be at times. Sometimes a decision is made for you overnight and so it was over the Vidor factory job. There had been a rumour going around the factory floor over the past few weeks but these whisperings now turned into a deafening roar. A big pay-off was expected, due to the same old hoary story of a thwarted export order. It was also rumoured that the company ran a policy in regard to their workforce of ‘last in, first out’. If this was true then my particular role in the complex lay at the end of the line.
Because of this situation, I decided to look for another job and this turned out to be as a waitress in the restaurant of Draffen’s department store. The vacancy was in the Cottage Room, which lay right under the eaves and was decorated in a mock-Tudor style with brown Windsor chairs and dark wooden tables. This restaurant catered for shoppers and business trade and offered a table d’hôte menu which I think was priced about three and sixpence for a three-course meal. On the floor below us were three other restaurants, the Blue Room, the Dining Room and the Coffee Lounge, which catered for all tastes and purses.
Mum couldn’t understand why I hadn’t asked for my old job back in Wallace’s but I had been in a few times and most of the old faces had moved on to pastures new and strangers had filled the gap. Anyway, I never liked returning to a job, feeling it was a backward step. I liked meeting new faces and had already become friendly with Hannah, Pat and a few others in Draffen’s.
Getting to work every morning was a problem because of the four flights of stairs which rose like Everest from the staff side entrance. One morning, to avoid this trek, I made my way to the lift which was situated at the back of the ground floor of the store. Unfortunately, the man who operated the lift got wise to my antics. The next morning, he barred my way. ‘Eh ken you. You work upstairs and workers are no allowed to use the lifts,’ said the operator, who was disabled. The rumour was that he had been shell-shocked during the war, which was terrible if it was true.
‘Oh, come on! It’s a long climb up all the stairs and it doesn’t take you a minute to run me up,’ I said, trying to look fragile and incapable of such a strenuous exercise.
But he was adamant. ‘No, you’re supposed to use the stairs. This lift is for the use of customers only.’
I was furious as I raced up the stairs, wild at him and wild at myself for wasting precious time on the stupid lift instead of getting myself clocked in. This was the only restaurant I knew where the workers had a time clock, and heaven help you if you were habitually late.
By the time I reached the staffroom I was red-faced and mad. Hannah was still there. ‘Eh’ve no time to waste, Hannah. Eh’m late already,’ I said, lurching towards the small clock.
‘Don’t bother with that,’ Hannah said, ‘Eh’ve clocked you in. I saw you having an argument with the lift operator and Eh knew you wouldn’t win.’
That’s what you think, Hannah, I thought. The next morning, wearing my best coat and shoes and a long scarf draped across my face, I swanned to the lift. ‘Take me to the Cottage Room, young man,’ I requested in my best pan-loafy voice. ‘Now, Eh’ll be going to the Cottage Room every day during my long holiday in Dundee so Eh’ll see you tomorrow and thank you.’
He almost fell over in his haste to press the buttons. I got away with this act for about a week until he twigged and rounded on me angrily, ‘Eh’m no taking you up again! You have to use the stairs.’
‘Eh don’t know how he found out it was me,’ I moaned to Hannah as we stood in front of the staffroom mirror.
Hannah laughed. ‘Eh’m surprised you got away with it for even one day because you looked just like yourself. Even your voice.’
I was amazed. ‘Is that right?’ I said, seeing fame and fortune as an actress on a stage slowly evaporating before my eyes.
Meanwhile, back at home, Mum had taken possession of her new dentures but she didn’t like them and was forever complaining. ‘Eh just can’t eat anything with them. Eh think Eh’ll take the bottom set out.’
‘Look Mum, the dentist said you had to persevere with them and no take them out to eat anything. Otherwise you’ll never get used to them.’
Faced with this situation, she began to eat less and less and was beginning to look ill again. I told her to do what she thought suited her best, but still her appetite didn’t return. She managed to go to work every day but she was so tired that she went to bed the minute the tea was over. I was really worried. Even Nellie noticed it and urged her to see the doctor but Mum was adamant that the trouble lay with her new dentures. ‘Eh can’t eat with them, Nellie. By the time Eh’ve managed a few mouthfuls, the food is cold.’
I tried getting round this problem by serving a very small amount and keeping the rest hot in the oven but, the minute she finished her portion, she would view the rest as a second helping. ‘Eh’ll eat it for my supper,’ she said.
Then one day the mass X-ray van came to the dairy. Mum joined her fellow workers in the queue to be X-rayed without a worry in the world. Even when she was recalled, she told Nellie, ‘It’ll be my old pleurisy scar showing up. Eh’ve been X-rayed before and Eh got recalled then. What a worry Eh had until they told me it was just the scarring due to the pleurisy Eh had in 1947.’
‘Oh Eh do hope so,’ said Nellie, with a worried frown, ‘because Eh’ve been recalled as well although they did say it could be because Eh didn’t remove everything with metal in it.’
Mum laughed. ‘You’re no wearing a bullet-proof vest, are you?’
This cheered Nellie up and she remarked, ‘It’s easy to see what kind of pictures you like to go and see. Is it the gangster ones with Edward G. Robertson and Peter Lorre?’
The two women, along with all the folk who had been recalled, went back for another X-ray and, as it turned out, Nellie got the all-clear but Mum was told the shattering news that there was a shadow on her lung that wasn’t anything to do with the old scar. We were devastated by this grim news, especially Mum. Doctor Jacob said it meant hospital treatment and he added, ‘This will mean a stay in Ashludie Hospital and it will be for months rather than weeks. It all depends on how fast the shadow responds to treatment.’
As far as Mum was concerned, this was a death sentence. Wasn’t it a well-known fact that tuberculosis patients were sent to sanatoriums like Ashludie to be wheeled out into the fresh air every day, whether in rain, hail, snow or wind, in the vain hope that the elements would provide the cure? But as we all knew, a cure wasn’t always on the cards.
She was so upset the week before her admission to hospital that Nellie, Bella and Aggie, who for once didn’t mention her family, all tried to cheer her up. But Mum had made up her mind she was being sent away to die. The manageress of the restaurant gave me the morning off to take Mum to the hospital. She had been fretting about her old dressing gown, one minute saying how tatty it was, then the next saying it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be wearing it for long.
George and I decided to buy her a lovely red, velvet, fulllength housecoat that she had spied in Marks & Spencers and had fallen in love with. We also added a fluffy, winceyette nightdress and cosy slippers.
‘There now Mum, you’ll look like a real toff,’ we said, as I packed a small suitcase that Mrs Miller had lent her.
Mrs Miller was full of sympathy as she stood and watched us leave the close. She shoved a small bag of sweets into my hand as we passed. ‘Put these barley sugars in her bag in case your mum is feeling sick on the bus.’
With Mum giving the house and Mrs Miller a last backward glance, almost to say she wouldn’t be seeing it ever again, we set off for the bus station at Lindsay Street. Special buses ran from there right to the hospital, which was very convenient. It was possible to catch an ordinary service bus to Monifieth but that meant a long walk to the hospital which sat in its own extensive grounds above the village.
We arrived just before dinnertime on one of the coldest, wettest days of the autumn and, as we walked through the grounds towards the main door, leaves were cascading down on to the driveway before being whisked away by a fierce wind that swirled around our ankles. I recalled the night at the railway station when Ally had left for Cyprus. The wind had blown the debris around that night and now it was the turn of the leaves and dead flowers. For a brief moment I wondered if all the sad upheavals and partings in my life were to be heralded by nasty, cold winds.
The nurse took Mum away, holding her by the elbow while carrying her small case in her other hand. She turned as they set off along the corridor. ‘You can wait till your mother gets settled and then you can say cheerio.’
Although this was meant in a light sense, as in ‘Cheerio, I’ll see you tomorrow’, Mum turned with a stricken look on her face and I felt terrible. I gave her little wave and said I would wait.
I later found her lying in bed in a small, glassed veranda with a lovely view over the parklands to the sea beyond. Although the water wasn’t visible, you just knew it was there. There were five other beds in this ward but they were all vacant. I was allowed to sit for a wee while until the doctor arrived. Mum was upset but tried to hide it by chatting about the household arrangements. ‘Now you should manage all right. George usually makes his own tea so you won’t have to rush home from work for that.’
This was fine because, with George having his early morning start, he was normally home by early afternoon, while I didn’t get finished at Draffen’s until after six o’clock at night.
‘Another thing,’ she said, ‘if you have any trouble with the insurance money just go to the office in Tay Street.’
My mind was on this terribly silent ward and I hoped she wasn’t going to be left on her own all the time. If she was, her imagination would be working in treble time.
‘Aye, Mum, you’re not to worry about us. We’ll be fine. Now, promise me you’ll eat your meals in here and no just pick at your food.’
She nodded, giving me a look that suggested the cook wouldn’t be needed for long in her case. When the nurse came back, Mum jumped out of bed and began to put on her lovely red housecoat. The nurse started to object but Mum dismissed this.
‘Eh’m just going to wave to my lassie from the window.’
‘Eh’ll be back at visiting time tonight,’ I promised as I left the ward.
As I walked down the drive towards the bus, I could see her red-coated figure at the window and I kept looking back and waving until she was a mere coloured dot at the far end of the wild and windswept grounds. I almost ran back to tell her to pack her small suitcase and come home with me. After all, if she was going to die then it should be at home but I didn’t.
Back in Draffen’s, Hannah was waiting with a sympathetic ear, which was nice of her because she had her own problems. She was a divorced mother with two teenage sons to support. As usual, money was the universal problem or, rather, the lack of it. ‘Eh think there’s so much can be done with TB now. You know, new drugs,’ she said.
‘Oh, Eh hope you’re right, Hannah!’ was all I could say. After all, she hadn’t witnessed the thin, ill figure standing at the window.
After work, I caught the bus to the hospital and was surprised to find Nellie and Bella waiting. ‘We thought we would pay a wee visit to your mum,’ they said simply and this gesture touched me immensely. Mum may not have enjoyed good health or money but she was blessed with good friends.
‘How was she when you left?’ asked Nellie. I shrugged in a non-committal way. I felt I didn’t want to describe the sad figure in the red coat.
Mum was lying in bed, dressed in her pale, winceyette nightie and looking frail and ill, her face almost the same colour as the pillow-case. However, one thing I was pleased to see was that the five other beds were now occupied. ‘Did these folk come in after you, Mum?’ I asked, glancing around the now-busy veranda with its patients and visitors.
‘No, they were in a day room, Eh think,’ she said. ‘They all appeared in a bunch at teatime.’
Nellie was looking sad. ‘Are you feeling any better, Molly? Did they mention what treatment you’re getting?’
‘Aye, Eh’m getting dosed up with something called Streptomycin,’ she said wearily. ‘And here was me thinking all my problems were caused by my teeth. Do you mind me saying that was what caused my tired, washed-out feeling, Nellie?’
Nellie nodded. As usual, it was left to Bella to cheer up the conversation. ‘Och, you’ll be out of here in no time. Just you wait and see.’