Faith - Lesley Pearse [111]
She could hardly believe that men could come home from work, eat their tea, put on the clean ironed shirt their wife had ready for them and then disappear off to the pub, night after night. It was an unwelcome echo of her own childhood, and she couldn’t understand why their women didn’t protest.
She found it odd, too, that the Scots she met at that time seemed to have little interest in the decor of their homes. Going into one was like stepping back into the fifties. Even people with quite good jobs had very shabby homes, and few owned their own houses.
Her very first impression of Edinburgh was one of wonder. She gazed at the majestic Castle standing proud up on a vast rock as they drove into the city and could hardly wait to explore it. She saw, too, the elegant Georgian New Town with its wide streets and leafy squares and felt this was a city she could give her heart to.
But there was no time to explore. Stuart was anxious to find work quickly and in the meantime they were to stay with his parents.
Mr and Mrs Macgregor were welcoming enough, especially to Barney, but Laura sensed an undercurrent of disapproval that their son was involved with an older married woman. Mrs Macgregor showed Laura and Barney to Stuart’s old bedroom and made it quite plain that he would be sleeping on the sofa.
‘I will not have carrying on in my house,’ she said quietly but firmly.
Laura wished then that she’d anticipated this and found a room to rent. She felt badly about starting off on the wrong foot with this softly spoken, sweet-faced woman.
In most ways Stuart’s parents were what she expected, for his honesty, dignity and good manners were clearly the result of a careful upbringing. They were in their late fifties, both with grey hair, his mother small and tubby and his father around five feet eight with a craggy face and the same strong jawline as Stuart. But Laura was surprised by the humbleness of their two-bedroom flat. Knowing Mr Macgregor was a first-class tradesman, she had imagined he earned very good money. Yet they had no washing machine, their fridge was ancient, and the kitchen, though scrupulously clean, was very old-fashioned. Even more surprisingly, Stuart told her that they moved there when he was ten, and at that time his brother and sister were still living at home. She wondered how they had all fitted in.
Laura wasn’t happy staying with the Macgregors, as by day Stuart was out hunting for work, and she was left with his mother. It seemed rude to take Barney out and explore Edinburgh when she was an uninvited guest. Stuart didn’t seem to want her to look for a flat for them until he’d got a job, so she had to spend the days helping his mother with her chores and going out to the local shops to buy food for dinner.
Right from a child Laura had always been the one who cleaned, cooked and tidied up, and she found Mrs Macgregor’s assumption that she was undomesticated irritating. There was no variety in the meals she cooked either, meat and vegetables ruled, and she looked alarmed when Laura tentatively suggested that a pasta or rice dish might make a pleasant change.
Even more irritating was that she had no time alone with Stuart. The minute his father had eaten his dinner he went to the pub, expecting Stuart to go with him. When she asked if she could go too, Mr Macgregor looked at her in astonishment.
‘Nay, lassie,’ he said. ‘’Tis all men there.’
When Stuart got taken on to do the joinery in a school which was being modernized, they were both overjoyed. As he had a few days before he was needed, he began looking for a home for them. Again it was made quite clear by the Macgregors that this was a man’s job and Laura was to keep out of it.
On the Friday before he was due to start the new job, he came home with a key. ‘I’ve got us a hoose,’ he said, grinning delightedly. ‘We can move in as soon as we’ve found some furniture.’
It never occurred to Laura to ask him to define ‘hoose’, and she was soon to discover that the word meant merely ‘home’ to him.
He