31

Leith, 1835

Jean Scott had been dozing in front of the fire when the noise cut through her sleep like a sharp knife. For a moment she was lost in an unfamiliar world, half between dream and awakening, then the sound came again, a high-pitched squeal such as she sometimes heard when she passed the auld slaughterhoose.

She was a stocky brisk woman, over forty years in age, who had already survived much in life, her husband Hughie dying an early martyr to strong drink. She buried him, spat on her hands, then made a new life for herself as a cook for Judge MacGregor’s household, mustering a touch of surprising delicacy as regards desserts … Edinburgh Fog, Caledonian Cream and the like. The judge’s wife had a sweet tooth, in contrast to her sour disposition.

Jean had saved good honest wages, reaching the point where she might look forward to a long peaceful roll down the hill towards the iron gates of Rosebank cemetery, but it would seem fate had other plans.

The noise grew louder as she came out and crossed the hall to her neighbour’s door. It was Jamie McLevy, she was sure of it, a quiet wee boy of seven years who kept his own counsel. The mother had probably been taken by one of her fits. Jean, periodically, heard her yowling away in what sounded like Latin. There was little danger of the woman being possessed of the devil though, not from the way she fingered that rosary.

A sharp tap on the locked door and the noise cut off abruptly.

‘Jamie!’ she called. ‘It’s me, Jean. Auntie Jean.’

She called herself so to him, though no relative. They knew each other fine well. The boy would visit and sit by the fire, with a wee home biscuit to keep him going, especially when the yowling was afoot.

She never asked and he never said.

The silence was profound on the other side. She tapped again.

‘Jamie. I cannae get in if you cannae get out.’

This proposition seemed to do the trick. She heard him approach, then insert and turn the key.

The door opened slowly and she stepped inside.

The boy looked up at her. He had slate-grey eyes like a wild dog, and his face white as the judge’s wig.

She smiled reassurance. ‘Where’s your mammy, son?’

He pointed wordlessly at the recess bed in the room where the curtain had been pulled aside. Jean stepped carefully across the floor where various pieces of material were neatly laid out, with more spread on the table.

She’d never been in here before, just nodded in the hall. The place was clean as a whistle, a kitchen, workroom, living space, his wee bed over in the corner. She had to negotiate a wooden lay-figure which stood in the centre of the room, the bottom part swathed in a fine velvet skirt but the top as yet unclothed and showing its uncovered bosom.

Jean averted her eyes modestly, walked to the bed and looked in past the half-pulled curtain.

It was a sight to freeze the soul. Had the woman not gone and stabbed at her throat? With her own shears by the looks of it. The crucifix was stained all with blood.

She put out her hand to touch the cold skin on the wrist of the corpse. No pulse. The dead eyes could have told her so. She thought to close them but wasn’t sure of the Catholic custom.

High above the bed-head was a representation of Pope Pius IX. Jean was a staunch Presbyterian but no fanatic.

Let each worship whom they may, she steered the middle course but she could not help thinking that Pius hadn’t been much help on this   occasion. The woman would have been better off knocking on Jean’s door and sitting by the flames with a hot sweet tea.

Hughie had liked it strong. He liked everything strong. Gripped her so hard on their wedding night, he near cracked her ribs.

These thoughts had kept the shock at bay. Now, she found she was trembling. How long had she been standing here?

And the boy? She turned away from the gory mess on the bed and pulled the curtains across. He must have seen it.

‘I was hungry,’ he piped up. His face was blank. Like a mask. The stone-grey eyes looked at her, but they were seeing something else. For God’s sake, the child was only seven, how could his mother do such a thing in her own home? Could she not stab her throat in the chapel, let the priest mop it up?

Jean swallowed her anger. How can you ever know what people may do, or why they do so? God help the woman. She must have been desperate.

If you believed scripture, she was a damned soul. The devil had his claws in her and was dragging her into the pit of hell. Never to return. A damned soul.

She realised she’d been standing there muttering in front of the poor wee lamb, his eyes still fixed upon her.

This wouldnae do. Don’t want him thinking there were two madwomen in the hoose. What was it, he said? Hungry. Aye. She could fix that.

‘We’ll go next door. Tae Auntie Jean’s, eh? I have a penny loaf. I’ll cut ye a slab with cheese. And pickle. Do you like pickle, James?’

Whether it was the thought of a knife cutting through the white bread or the kindness in her voice, the dam broke in his heart. He let out a cry of loss and bewilderment and hurtled across the room to bury his face into her broad belly.

‘It was my blame,’ he howled, his voice piercing into her flesh like a dagger.

‘What was your blame, son?’

‘At Easter. She would wait. Every time. He never knocked the door.’

Jean wasn’t sure she’d heard the words correctly, his face buried so deep.

‘Who never knocked, son?’

‘The Angel. The Angel of the Lord.’

‘Well,’ said Jean, trying her best. ‘Angels are busy folk.’

The boy lifted back his head and looked at her.

‘It was my blame,’ he said.

She had never seen such agony in a face and clutched him in close as if to shield him from all the horrors of this world. Her own eyes filled up with tears.

Then she sniffed hard. This would not do. Whatever madness had possessed the woman, whatever angel knocked or did not knock upon the door, whatever rived the heart of that wee boy so that he took the cares of the world upon his shoulders, she knew one thing.

Tears got ye nowhere.

She took a long slow breath to calm herself. What was to become of the boy?

The McLevy woman had no kin, she was sure of that, no relatives ever visited, not a friend in off the street; he would end up in a home.

As if he sensed her thought, the boy buried his face back into her body as if he could hide himself inside.

Aye, and there was room so. She’d never had a child. Nae wee pap-bairn at her breast. Hughie was vigorous and regular enough but the seed didnae take.

It was the Lord’s will she had told herself as the years passed, so maybe this was his doing as well.

Everything was his doing, was it not?

She could use the company right enough. She’d been thinking of a dog but it would chew lumps out of her best furniture.

This thought put a fierce smile on her face. Still holding the boy, she picked up a corner of her apron and scrubbed hard at her damp eyes. Here she was with a dead woman soaked in her own blood, a lost wee soul sticking his nose into her belly-button and all she could think about was furniture.

Still. Hughie always said she had a practical nature. That was her. Now, how to quiet this wee soldier? He was silent this moment, but inside there would be a storm raging.

Anger and grief. Two terrible thieves that can steal your life away, as she knew to her cost.

Thomas Imrie, the cobbler. He was a drinking pal of Hughie’s and a terrible Jacobite, but he could carry a tune. Full many a time she listened with her arms folded as Hughie banged the spoons to accompany, not that he gave a damn about the Bonny Prince, but the cobbler did.

With a passion. And she was charmed by passion. In spite of herself.

What was his favourite now? She began a tune, a melody of sorts, her voice a bit trembling at first but gathering strength. And the boy, listening, quieted down inside his bruised and broken heart.