Where There is Evil (6 page)

My father knew I would never tell my mother the brutal truth – that I, her child, knew that he was unfaithful to her. And he knew that she was unlikely to see his faults for herself. She
would stick by him through thick and thin. I puzzled over this endlessly.
Why
did she seem to admire him, even look up to him? He was a reliable worker: he provided for his family and was
the main breadwinner, though money always had to be augmented by a series of part-time jobs taken by my mother. He was also inordinately proud of being a teetotaller: terrified of losing his PSV
licence, which in those days was difficult to obtain, he refused to touch a drop of alcohol, and adhered to this strict code even at Hogmanay. He almost always volunteered to do overtime, would not
take even a sip of Grandpa Frew’s famous elderberry wine, and refused to venture into a pub.

My mother always regarded his temperance as a major saving grace and she watched in horror as other women tried to cope with men who did not hand over their weekly pay packet on Friday nights,
but went straight to the pub and drank every penny before weaving their way home. ‘There are worse things,’ my mother would say heavily, ‘than fancying the wimmin.’

Also, however unsatisfactory other aspects of her marriage were, she was from a family to which you could not return if things were not right. Marriage was seen as irrevocably binding and
divorce frowned on as against all the teachings of the Church. ‘You’ve made your bed, now lie on it,’ would have been the response of her parents to any complaints. Divorce then
was a social stigma, and just as we accepted that the work chosen by young men would be what they did till retirement, so we assumed that marriage would be with one lifelong partner. In the 1950s
we knew no one who was divorced, and the word was only associated with Hollywood film stars.

Even my interest in the printed word led to a puzzling and upsetting discovery about my father. I stumbled across magazines belonging to him while I was looking through a cupboard, and wondering
about the existence of Father Christmas – I had spotted some Christmas wrapping and, although I knew I should not be doing it, I had started to rummage. Under piles of
Exchange and
Mart
I found what I now realize were graphic pornography magazines. They were not like
TitBits or Reveille
, which I had seen high up on the shelves in Mrs Linnie’s little
newsagent shop in St John’s Street near the chapel. These magazines showed torture and graphic scenes of women in wartime concentration camps being branded on their naked bodies with hot
irons. With a strange mixture of guilt, fascination and shame, I replaced the magazines so that nobody could tell they had been disturbed. Knowing my mother preferred to keep clear of my
father’s domain, I was positive she knew nothing of them. She even disapproved of me looking at our family medical book, in which there were pull-out pictures of intestines, and information
on the mysterious, forbidden human reproductive system. I had learned to study it when she was not around, but this was different. This was yet another matter on which I knew instinctively that it
would be better to remain silent.

When I was seven my father was involved in two incidents that eroded any remaining love I had for him.

My mother deemed that I was old enough to take my father his ‘piece’ – lunch sandwiches – if he was asked to do an extra shift. This meant walking down to the foot of
Dunbeth Road, to the bus stop on Main Street at which all the local buses pulled in. I would look for his usual vehicle, the single-decker Cliftonville bus, which was timed to arrive every
half-hour, the crews passing each other or meeting up for mealtimes at the terminus. At busy times as many as eight buses an hour might ply this route, which was popular because it took passengers
right through the town centre. The final destination varied: my father’s bus nearly always went to Kirkwood in Old Monkland, and turned at what was then a quiet, rather desolate spot near the
cemetery.

Normally I greeted my father, settled on his bus at the front and chattered to him. Needless to say, my fare was not collected by his clippie, who would sit, if she ever had the chance, on the
first seat on the right as you walked up the aisle, so that she could talk to the driver. A little door at waist height separated him from his passengers. People always chatted to the driver and
eventually a rule was made, and prominently posted up, warning that it was an offence to engage him in conversation.

One day in 1956, I had gone as usual with my father’s sandwiches. My mother decided, because the bus was going to Kirkwood and my dad’s aunt May lived just across the road from the
terminus, that I should take some flowers to May’s old mother, rather than having my own sandwiches with my dad and his clippie. I was quite happy to do this, as Aunt May and Uncle Harry, her
husband, had a television set. I knew they would let me watch the after-lunchtime children’s programmes, including
The Woodentops
, which I liked.

My aunt greeted me and waved at my father, who was turning his bus and parking it next to another single-decker. She was fairly used to drivers and conductresses who were friends of my father
coming to ask if they could fill up their flasks or pop into her bathroom. She made me some tea, then gave me the sad news that the TV repair man had just departed with the set: it had broken down.
After some desultory conversation, I tiptoed with the flowers into my great-grandmother’s room. She did not stir, and I decided to rejoin my father, who was due for a half-hour break at the
terminus.

I boarded his bus by pushing hard on the concertina-style folding door at the front. My arrival was totally unexpected by all four adults who were grouped near the back of the vehicle, sprawled
on the side seats. They did not even realize I was walking up the narrow aisle towards them, until I was almost there. My father and his conductress were grappling with each other in a way I had
never seen before, while opposite them the driver of the other bus was locked in a passionate embrace with
his
clippie. In the few seconds I had to register the scene, I noticed that a pair of frilly briefs was hanging out of my father’s pocket and the woman’s stockings were round her ankles. He was
clambering on to the seat just over her, pinning down her wrists with one strong arm. What on earth were they
doing
?

‘Their telly’s broken so I’ve come back,’ I announced.

In the ensuing scramble, I was aware of my father’s furious, scarlet face looking over his right shoulder. He gaped at me. ‘Get the hell out of here!’ he roared.

I raced back to my aunt’s house. When I sobbed out to her what had happened, she pointed upwards to the ceiling where her elderly mother slept and put a finger to her lips. She put her arm
round me. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she murmured soothingly. ‘Just forget it, hen, he’ll have forgotten all about it when you go back, you’ll see.’

‘But what will my mum say? He’s bound to tell her,’ I spluttered.

‘Bet you he won’t say.’ She looked at me knowingly. ‘And maybe best you don’t mention it to her either, Sandra. He married a saint when he wed your mum, you know.
That’s what oor Jenny ma sister aye says, Alex merrit a saint.’

With brisk efficiency, she began to wipe my cheeks with a cold flannel, and said, ‘Now, just you forget all about it.’

Perhaps, after the incident at the bus terminus, my father was concerned that I might disclose the relationship he had with his clippie: a brief period followed in which he was pleasant to my
mother. He should take her out more often, he mused, Mary needed to get away from the kids a bit. Bemused, my mother pointed out that I was not nearly old enough, at seven, to be left in charge of
the two boys. He talked of arranging a babysitter, and although Mary dismissed this as more pie in the sky, he brought a thirteen-year-old girl to our home one day and introduced her as Betty. The
young, giggly blonde sister of one of his colleagues, she wished to earn pocket money.

Surprised, but pleased, my mother agreed it would be nice to go to the pictures with her husband and an occasional dance. A deal was struck, and Betty became a regular visitor to Dunbeth Road,
always escorted home by my father. I looked forward to her visits, while noting with distaste the way my dad looked at her, particularly when my mother was not in the room. I came to regard her as
yet another threat to my mother’s happiness, and began to show a distinct coolness towards her, which my father thought uppity.

Betty’s visits continued as winter approached, but one Saturday she did not come. My dad, in a jovial mood, handed money ceremoniously to my mother. ‘Why don’t you take the
kids and yourself to the pictures?’

I jumped up and down in great excitement, because
The Wizard of Oz
was showing at the Garden near my granny’s, and I loved the story. My mother was pleased by his generosity, and
the way in which he helped organize the two younger ones, putting Ian into a pushchair. All smiles, he waved us goodbye, and said he would have a meal fixed up from the chippie nearby for our
early-evening return. We set off happily enough, arrived at the cinema, and paid our admission money at the kiosk. All was well during the Wee Picture, and Ian nodded off to sleep. Then the main
feature began. While I was entranced with the Munchkins, Norman, who was three years younger than me and not yet at school, began to whimper, at first quietly, then louder.

In vain my mother tried to hush him, glancing round apologetically. Maybe he would have settled down, if the Wicked Witch of the West had not then made her dramatic entrance. Norman’s
screams of terror filled the cinema and Ian woke up and joined in. My mother dragged us towards the exit, which did not suit me. I chimed in with the howls of protest, as a frantic usherette
hurried us into the corridor. Luckily, my mother knew her, and not only did she refund our ticket money, she told my mother that I could see another showing of the picture free.

However, there we all were, turfed out of the cinema much earlier than anticipated. ‘Never mind,’ my mother said stoically. ‘Let’s just head home early for our fish and
chips. At least that part of your dad’s treat you
will
get, Sandra.’

We caught a bus from Whifflet up to Coatbridge. I ran on ahead of mum and reached our back door first. I burst into our small living room and froze. My father was with a little girl of about
two, the child of one of our neighbours. She was sitting on our couch, half-dressed, with an expression of bewilderment on her face. Then my mother appeared behind me. An unholy row broke out and
we kids were all bundled into the bedroom, and told to keep quiet.

Just before Christmas in 1956, without warning, some men arrived and took our daddy away, witnessed by Norman. For several days, we were all in a daze and people refused to discuss my
father’s disappearance. I was unable to fathom what on earth he had done now and I was too scared to ask. All I knew was that adults fell silent when I walked into rooms, whether it was at
home, at Granny Katie’s in Ashgrove, or Granny Jenny’s in Bellshill. Voices dropped to a whisper in my presence, children acted oddly towards me at school and neighbours avoided my
mother and huddled in small groups to murmur together. I began to think that whatever had happened must involve me, but I was terrified to know how. Eventually, I could not prevent myself from
asking, ‘What’s happened to my daddy? Where is he gone?’

I confronted my mother and grandmother as they sat sobbing together, and yet apart, in our living room, in which a Christmas tree waited forlornly to be dressed. My mother couldn’t look at
me, and sobbed all the harder. It was one thing to see her cry, but odd to see Granny Jenny, a big strapping woman who had worked all her life gutting fish and butchering meat, crying her heart
out. I was stricken by her face. She blew her nose noisily, then looked at me, her eyes puffed and swollen. She was wearing black from top to toe, and the material reeked of camphor. Had someone
died?

‘Hospital,’ she croaked, ‘Yer daddy’s been taken awa’ tae the hospital, hen. Dinnae ask yer mammy any mair aboot it, she’s far too upset the noo. Ye’ll
be telt all aboot it when ye’re a lot bigger.’

I looked at her solemnly and nodded. There was a long silence, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, their whimpers and the occasional movement of great glowing cinders
in the fire as logs shifted. My eyes fixed on the firelight, which usually fascinated me with its myriad pictures, and I rolled myself into a little ball, chin perched miserably on my knees.
‘Does it mean Santa won’t be coming to us this year then?’ There were cuddles of reassurance, and I was told that this year would be a bit different, but Santa would not forget
where we stayed. The subject had been changed, but neither woman ever voluntarily told me where my father was.

Reluctantly, I accepted what I was told. One day in the summer of 1957, I asked my grandfather as we picked sweet peas together, confidentially, ‘Why can’t I visit my daddy in
hospital?’

He looked at me quickly, then carried on cutting the twisted tendrils. ‘There are some hospitals children aren’t allowed to visit – d’you mind when Gran and I took ye on
the train to see someone at Hartwood?’

I nodded, all ears. My dad’s father was chief boilerman then at Bellshill Maternity near where they stayed, and I reasoned that he must know about these things.

‘Well, it’s a mental hospital – you and William had to play outside, remember? This is the same. Your dad’s in a mental home. They wouldn’t let you in,
Sandra.’

I absorbed this answer and suppressed more questions. I did remember the visit to some relative. It had stuck in my mind because, as we played in the grounds of the hospital, my cousin and I had
seen some patients shovelling snow. As one bent perspiring over a spade, heaving the glistening heaps into the front of a wheelbarrow, another was busy tipping snow out of the back. This had
greatly appealed to the humour of two five-years-olds, but we were also slightly fearful of these souls who had been labelled ‘daft’, and we ran off as they approached us.