Monday Girl Read Free Page B

She felt cheated, betrayed, but it was only after the man left that she found blessed relief in tears, while Renee stood by helplessly. She had never seen her mother weeping before, and the experience was not pleasant.
    ‘It was best for her to let her grief oot, lassie,’ Granny said that afternoon, when the girl told her about it. ‘She needed to ha’e a good greet, an’ she’ll feel the better for it. But ye’ll ha’e to try to keep her spirits up, though ye’ll need to be content wi’ a lot less than ye’ve been gettin’ up to now.’ Maggie put her arm round the girl, to let her know she wasn’t criticising her in any way, and Renee blinked away her tears as they joined her mother in the living room. She vaguely understood from overheard conversations between Granny and Granda, Uncle George and Anne on Sunday afternoon, that her life was going to be different in future. She had no father to provide for her now, and all his savings had gone to pay the deposit on this house in Cattofield, a fairly new suburb of Aberdeen, where they’d moved only eight months ago. And something called a mortgage had to be paid every month, otherwise they wouldn’t even have a roof over their heads.
    Renee also gathered that her mother would not receive a widow’s pension, because Jim Gordon, in partnership with his brother George in a small butcher shop, had not paid insurance stamps. Apparently it wasn’t compulsory for a self-employed man to contribute, and he had never considered the possibility that he could die so young.
    Uncle George was going to carry on the shop with the help of Frank Leslie, the young man he’d employed after Renee’s father was killed last Monday. He agreed to make Anne a small allowance, but he warned her that it wouldn’t be much, after the wages were paid, and all the other expenses.
    Maggie McIntosh pursed her lips when she heard this.
    ‘I doubt ye’ll ha’e to tak’ a job, Annie.’
    ‘I’m not trained for anything.’ Anne looked rueful. ‘And a skivvy’s wages wouldn’t pay the mortgage and the rates and everything else.’
    Anne McIntosh had been fortunate in marrying a man like Jim Gordon, everyone had said at the time, with her just being in service and him his own boss, but it was hard to be left like this. ‘Oh,’ she groaned, suddenly. ‘Why did it have to be a butcher? If it had been another kind of shop, I could have served behind the counter, but I don’t know anything about cuts of meat, or making sausages and potted head.’
    ‘My father used to say he was a flesher and poulterer, not a butcher,’ George Gordon remarked. ‘That’s what’s above the door.’
    Maggie fixed him with a reprimanding glare as she tutted with disapproval at his facetiousness, and he looked suitably chastened, so she turned her attention on her daughter again.
    ‘Ye’ve a grand hoose, Annie, so ye could maybe tak’ in lodgers. Ye wouldna mak’ muckle profit aff them, but it would surely see ye an’ yer bairn fed and clad, an’ pay for the electric an’ gas, as weel as yer mortgage an’ rates.’
    Anne looked horrified. ‘Jim wouldn’t have wanted his house used for taking in lodgers, Mother.’
    ‘Maybe no’, m’ dear, but he shoulda looked ahead an’ ta’en oot an insurance on his life, so’s nae to leave ye penniless.’
    ‘That wasn’t Jim’s fault. He did speak about it, but I thought we’d have a hard enough time paying the building society for the sixteen years without taking on any more commitments.’
    Shaking her head until a few long dark strands, and one or two silver, struggled loose from the coil at the back, Maggie said, rather impatiently, ‘An’ jist look far it’s got ye. Lodgers are yer only hope, as far as I can see.’
    ‘I suppose so.’ Anne’s sigh was prolonged and noisy. ‘But how do I go about getting them?’
    ‘Tak’ oot an advert in the paper, or answer ane, if ye like. There’s aye men needin’ lodgin’s.’
    When her