Nellie Wildchild

by Emma Blair

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

The Glasgow Nellie Thompson had been born in city bled colourless by poverty and despair, and divided against itself by religion and class. A city where appearances meant more than the truth that might lie in a person's heart . . . Nellie knew what it was like to be hungry and hopeless; to live a bitter lie with a man she hated. But still she held on to her dreams. Somehow she would leave those grey and violent streets behind. Somehow she would make her own life and her own world - even if she were forever denied the comfort of love. Praise for Emma Blair: 'An engaging novel and the characters are endearing - a good holiday read' Historical Novels Review 'All the tragedy and passion you could hope for . . . Brilliant' The Bookseller 'Romantic fiction pure and simple and the best sort - direct, warm and hugely readable. Women's fiction at an excellent level' Publishing News 'Emma Blair explores the complex and difficult nature of human emotions in this passionately written novel' Edinburgh Evening News 'Entertaining romantic fiction' Historical Novels Review '[Emma Blair] is well worth recommending' The Bookseller

Release date: October 13, 2016

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 384

Sample

Nellie sang as she combed her long, yellow hair. Her voice was like an angel’s, her father often said. An angel come to earth.

‘Nellie, it’s five past seven! Babs will have been waiting for you down at the close mouth five minutes since!’ Betty Thompson, Nellie’s mother, shouted from ben the kitchen.

‘I’m ready!’ Nellie shouted back. And, after a final inspection of her face, shrugged herself into her coat, picked up her handbag and hurried through to the kitchen where she found Betty washing up the tea dishes at the sink and her da sitting slumped in his chair before the fire reading the evening paper. Her wee brother Roddy was sitting in the other fireside chair facing her da with his head buried in a comic. He was a great one for the comics.

‘Will I do?’ Nellie demanded, her eyes bright with anticipation at the evening lying ahead. For it was Friday night, time for fun and a few laughs.

Davey Thompson glanced up from his paper. ‘Come closer so I can get a better look at you,’ he commanded.

Nellie took a few steps forward.

Davey shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you lassies have to wear make-up,’ he said. ‘You’re just spoiling the natural beauty the good God gave you.’

Nellie sighed. Ever since she’d started wearing make-up it had been a bone of contention between her father and herself. Over-gilding the lily was how he usually put it.

‘I’m wearing hardly any at all,’ she defended. ‘Less than half what Babs and the other girls at work wear.’

‘I’m not interested in Babs or the girls at work,’ Davey said. ‘You’re my daughter. You’re the one I’m interested in.’

‘Ma?’ Nellie appealed.

‘It’s the fashion for lassies to be made up,’ Betty said from the sink. Drying her workworn hands on a tea cloth, she came to her husband’s side. ‘She looks all right to me,’ she added.

Davey grumbled under his breath, a look of uncertainty still on his face.

Nellie was impatient now, desperate to get on her way. But she curbed her impatience knowing full well that unless her father was placated she’d be ordered back through to the house’s one bedroom to wipe her make-up off and start afresh.

‘Come on, Davey, she’s late as it is,’ Betty cajoled.

Nellie silently blessed her mother whom she knew she could always rely on. Luckily Ma wasn’t an old stick-in-the-mud like her da. Ma understood about things like this.

‘I think the eyes are a bit heavy but aye, all right, away you go then,’ Davey said reluctantly, adding sharply, as Nellie hurried to the door, ‘And mind you’re home by eleven. Any later and you’re for it my lass. It’s bad enough you go out looking like a painted Jezebel. What I’ll not stand for is you coming in at God knows what hour when you think we’re asleep and don’t know.’

Nellie stopped at the door. ‘That only happened once, Da, because Babs and I missed the last bus and had to walk.’

‘Well see you don’t miss it again, that’s all.’

‘I promise.’

‘Enjoy yourself, lass,’ Betty said, an understanding smile hovering round her lips.

‘Cheerio,’ said Nellie. And then she was gone, the sound of her high heels clattering down the stone close steps.

‘And no smoking!’ Davey called out. But he was too late. She was well out of hearing.

‘She thinks I’m daft but I’m not,’ he said to his wife. ‘Comes in here smelling like an ashtray and tells me she’s not smoking. Well, I know better. I didn’t come up the Clyde on a bicycle after all.’

‘What did you come up in, Da?’ Roddy asked, his eyes twinkling mischievously as he looked up for the first time.

Fast as a striking snake Davey’s hand lashed out to clip Roddy’s ear.

‘And I’ll have no cheek from you either,’ Davey said, settling himself back into his chair while Roddy howled.

‘You asked for that,’ Betty said, before turning on her heel and returning to the dishes piled high in the sink.

‘Youngsters nowadays think they can get away with murder. Well I’ve got news for them, they can’t in my house,’ Davey said, having, as usual, the last word.

‘What kept you?’ Babs Boyd demanded when Nellie appeared at the close mouth. She and Nellie had been great pals since their schooldays and now worked together side by side at Harrison’s sweet factory.

‘Och, it was my da wittering on as usual,’ Nellie replied.

Babs sighed. ‘I know what you mean. Mine’s just the same, as you well know. If it isn’t one thing he finds to go on about it’s another.’

The two girls nodded in sympathy.

‘So where’s it to be then? Up the town or local?’ Babs asked.

Nellie had been swithering about that for the last hour. ‘What do you fancy?’

‘I’m easy.’

‘Me too.’

‘There’s a new band at the Roxy. Big Jessie at work has heard them before and says they’re good.’ The Roxy was a dance-hall in the centre of Govan, the area where they both lived, less than a quarter of a mile away.

‘Shall we take a chance on that then?’ Nellie asked.

‘Why not?’

‘Then the Roxy it is,’ Nellie said, slipping her arm through Babs’s, adding as they started down the street, ‘I didn’t really fancy going too far away in case it buckets which I’m sure it’s going to do later.’

Babs glanced up at the heavy, lowering sky which was so close as to seem to be resting on the tenement roofs. ‘Aye, I think you’re right,’ she said, unconsciously touching her brolly to make sure she’d brought it with her.

‘Tram or walk?’ Nellie demanded.

‘May as well walk. It’s hardly worth the tram.’

‘Right.’

Arm in arm they strode past the tram stop and into the grey, sooty night.

For a while they walked in silence and then, giggling suddenly, Babs said, ‘Do you think he’ll be there the night?’

‘Who?’

‘Him. Mr Right.’

Nellie smiled. Babs was always going on about her Fate. The man, the one and only Babs was convinced destiny had earmarked for her.

‘He might well be. You never know do you?’ Nellie replied.

Babs’s face lit up. This was her favourite subject and one she never tired of talking about or speculating upon. ‘What do you think yours will look like?’ she asked. It was a question she’d asked Nellie at least a thousand times before.

Nellie’s answer always depended upon her mood, or the last man she’d seen whom she’d fancied. ‘Tall,’ she said.

‘Aye, tall,’ Babs breathed. A tall man was always the first prerequisite, the vast majority of Glasgow men being under six foot six.

‘Good looking –’

‘That goes without saying. A real dreamboat.’

‘With a wee tache like William Powell.’

‘You don’t fancy a wee tache surely?’ Babs said in horror. ‘They tickle when you kiss.’

‘Maybe so but they make a man look more debonair, sophisticated. Don’t you fancy William Powell?’

‘Oh aye. But without the tache.’

‘And he must have broad shoulders,’ Nellie went on. ‘I can’t stand those skinnymalinks you run into. Most of them look like a good puff of wind would knock them over.’

Babs giggled. ‘I know what you mean. But I’m not against the skinny ones. Some of them can be awful affectionate, as though they’re trying to make up for being so wee and runty.’

Like a lot of Glasgow women, Babs was well-fleshed and rounded, and would have made two of the skinnymalinks they were talking about.

‘And he has to be kind,’ Nellie said.

‘None of your cruel sods for me either,’ said Babs. ‘Especially those who come home and beat the hell out of you whenever they’ve had a bucket. And believe me, there’s plenty of that kind about.’

Both girls nodded knowingly at one another. Brought up in the tenements, they knew only too well what went on at night, especially on a Friday after the boozers shut and the drunks staggered home with what remained of their pay packets in their pockets. Those were the times when wives, and sometimes children, were likely to be beaten.

Nellie thanked God her da had never been like that. Sure he often took a good drink and came home the worse for wear, but she could never remember him lifting his hand against her ma. It was the same with Babs’s da.

Their conversation about Mr Right stopped on reaching the Roxy where they had to stand in a queue.

‘It looks like a good turnout the night,’ Babs said as they shuffled forward. But then Friday and Saturday nights invariably were at the dancing, Glasgow being the most dancing-mad city in the whole Empire.

Once inside they made straight for the cloakroom where they immediately lit up. ‘Jesus, but I was gasping for that,’ Babs said, drawing smoke deep into her lungs. She’d been dying for a fag since leaving home but would never have dreamt of smoking in the street. Only a tart would ever do that.

As soon as they had their cigarettes they took themselves out on to the floor where Nellie was asked if she was for up?

She made sure the boy who’d done the asking seemed acceptable before assenting to his roughly made request.

‘Do you come here often?’ the boy asked as they glided round the floor.

Nellie groaned inwardly. It was the clichéd, standard opening. If only some of them could be at least a little original!

‘Now and again,’ she replied, resisting his attempts to pull her close.

At the end of the dance he asked if she’d like a lemonade.

‘No thanks,’ she smiled and excused herself, leaving him standing there looking after her. She’d quickly decided he wasn’t her type at all.

She found Babs eyeing the unmatched males lining the opposite wall.

‘The talent’s not bad,’ Babs said. ‘One or two right lookers among them.’

Nellie took a quick glance across at the male lineup. Babs was right, there were one or two who weren’t half bad.

‘Are you dancing?’

Babs flashed what she hoped was a winning smile. ‘Are you asking?’

‘No, I’m here trying to get a couple of pints.’

‘A wit!’ Babs exclaimed. Then to Nellie, ‘Glasgow’s full of them.’

‘That’s not all Glasgow’s full of,’ the boy retorted.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Come on the floor and I’ll tell you.’

Babs laughed. ‘You sound like a right patter merchant. Come on then, let’s see if your feet are as quick as your tongue.’

Babs and the young man melted into the dancing throng where they were quickly lost to view.

Three times in a row Nellie turned down offers of a partner. She didn’t fancy any of them and besides, Babs had been right, the band was good, so for the moment she was content just to stand and listen.

A little later Babs reappeared by her side. ‘I thought you’d got a click there,’ Nellie said.

‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ Babs shrugged. ‘I think he’s gone away to consider the idea. I get the impression he’s not exactly the impulsive type.’

Both girls laughed.

‘How about a drink?’ Nellie asked a few minutes later. Babs agreed and they trooped off to the refreshment bar, but as she drank her lemonade Nellie became aware of a young man watching her covertly from a spot a dozen or so feet away. Glancing boldly in his direction she laughed inwardly when he coloured and hurriedly looked elsewhere. But Babs began to chat again, and the young man was instantly forgotten.

The night passed and they both danced a number of times, Nellie more than Babs as was almost always the case when they went out together. But the fact that Nellie was far prettier than she was never bothered Babs. It was something she accepted and, in fact, secretly enjoyed, basking in a sort of reflected glory.

It had just gone twenty past ten and Nellie was thinking of saying she thought it was time they were for off, when out of the crowd materialized a smallish, dark-haired young man who, stammering, asked her to dance.

She was about to refuse, thinking he wasn’t her type at all, when it suddenly came to her that this was the same chap whom she’d caught watching her earlier on at the refreshment bar. Not quite knowing why she changed her mind, she accepted his invitation.

He was clumsy, tripping over his own feet and hers. ‘I’m awful sorry,’ he mumbled after he’d nipped her toe for the second time. They’d been dancing less than a minute.

His hair was dark brown and curly; his eyebrows thick as ropes; the eyes beneath them brown and liquid.

‘My name’s Frank,’ he said.

‘I’m Nellie.’

‘I know.’

‘Oh, do you now?’

He blushed again, the way he had earlier on. ‘I heard somebody mention it,’ he said.

‘Are you sure you didn’t ask?’

He laughed, a deep, warm sound, which was the last thing she’d been expecting. ‘Well, maybe I did,’ he confessed.

The hand in hers tightened fractionally and his feet became more sure of themselves as though, somehow, that small confession had given him confidence.

‘You were watching me earlier on,’ she said boldly. ‘Why?’

‘You’ll think I’m soft.’

‘Try me.’

‘I saw you come into the hall and I just … well I just fancied you. Something rotten,’ he added hurriedly and looked away.

Nellie found this amusing. And not just a little touching. ‘Why didn’t you ask me up earlier?’ she smiled.

‘Now you really will think me soft.’

‘Go on.’

He licked his lips and cleared his throat. He was about to reply when the music stopped and they had to applaud along with everybody else.

‘Will you stay up?’ he asked, a hint of pleading in his voice.

‘All right,’ she said softly, and coming into his arms they moved off again as the music began.

‘You were about to say?’ she prodded.

‘I was too feart,’ he replied after a pause of a few seconds.

She’d known that was the answer, of course, but it impressed her that he’d admitted to it. It was rare for a Glasgow man to admit fear in any form – especially to or about a woman.

‘Are you usually shy?’ she asked.

He shook his head.

‘Only with me?’

‘A dozen times I was about to come over and ask you up but every time I tried my legs started to shake. I felt a proper fool I can tell you.’

Nellie was warming rapidly to this dark-haired lad called Frank. There was a different quality about him, something which made him stand out from the others. He’d caught her interest.

‘You’re the best-looking bird here. Do you know that?’ he said.

‘You’re only saying that,’ she replied coyly.

‘No, no. It’s true!’

She allowed herself to be drawn a little closer to him. The extreme heat in the hall had caused him to sweat. A not unpleasant smell, she thought – surprised at herself.

As they birled round she suddenly caught sight of the clock above the main entrance, it was twenty to the hour and if she didn’t leave right that instant she risked being late home. She couldn’t bear to think of the scene that would follow should that happen. It just wasn’t worth it.

Pulling away from him she said, ‘Look, I’m awful sorry, Frank, but I really must fly.’

He looked bewildered. ‘But I thought –’

‘It’s not you. It’s my da. He’ll kill me if I’m not in by eleven.’ Then she added mischievously, ‘See, you should have asked me up earlier,’ and, turning, she hurried across to where Babs was waiting for her.

They were just coming out of the cloakroom when Nellie found her arm being grasped. Anger flared in her but that vanished instantly when she saw it was Frank who had accosted her.

‘Can I take you home?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Thanks for asking but it really isn’t worth it. I’ll have to run as it is.’

He looked crestfallen. ‘Will you be here tomorrow night?’ he asked.

‘I’ve already arranged to go to the pictures with some of my pals. Sorry.’ Thinking she was giving him the brush off, he started to move away only to be stopped by her hand reaching out to touch him. ‘I could come next Friday night,’ she said.

‘I’ll be here waiting,’ he replied, a smile lighting up his face.

Long after she was gone he was still staring at the door through which she’d vanished.

*

Nellie hated the alarm clock whose strident jangling announced it was time for her to get up. Monday morning again. The start of another working week. God, what a life!

Opening her eyes she stared across at the kitchen window, through which she could see that it was a grey, dreich morning. Although still warm in bed, she shivered.

In the bedroom her parents’ alarm went off. Her mother would make an appearance in a minute to light the fire and put the kettle on, but her da would wait until she’d washed herself at the sink and got dressed before he got up.

Yawning, she swung herself out of the cavity bed she shared with her brother Roddy. The yawn turned to a sharp intake of breath as her feet made contact with the cold linoleum floor.

Hastily she pulled her dressing gown around her and slid her feet into her slippers. Crossing to the sink she began to wash herself, a lick really more than a proper wash, in the icy water from the tap.

Betty bustled in and set about bringing the house to life. Soon a cheery fire was crackling in the grate and the smell of porridge filled the room. Nellie dressed hurriedly, calling to her father when she was finished.

Sitting at the table drinking her first cup of tea, she thought of the dream she’d had the night before. A knight in shining armour, just like the one in the story book she’d had as a child, had come on a white horse to save her from a horrible dragon, and when the dragon was dead the knight had lifted his visor to reveal himself as Frank, the lad she’d met at the Roxy on Friday night. The dream amused Nellie. Her dreams weren’t usually that fanciful.

Perhaps she should have gone back to the Roxy on the Saturday night instead of saying she was going to the pictures, which had been a lie. But no, that would have made it too easy for him. Let him wait a week. Her feminine instincts told her that was the right tack to take.

‘Time you weren’t here,’ Betty said glancing across at the alarm clock standing on a chair by the cavity bed.

‘Aye, right,’ replied Nellie.

‘And hap up warm. It may be April, but it’s like the middle of winter out there.’

At the door Betty kissed Nellie on the cheek and then handed her her lunchtime piece. ‘See you the night,’ Betty said.

Down at the front close Nellie found Babs waiting for her as she did every working morning. ‘Another blinking Monday,’ Babs sniffed.

‘Aye. It would sicken your kidneys so it would,’ Nellie agreed.

‘You can say that again.’

Arm in arm and with heads bent against the biting wind, the two girls hurried on their way. Thanks to the wind the air was clean and fresh, not filled with its usual stench of cat urine and human waste.

How she hated this place, Nellie thought. The street was like a tipped midden, as were all its neighbours. Soot, dust, grime and just general filth were everywhere. The tenements lining either side were weighed down with countless years of neglect. Once tall, proud edifices, they were now raddled, diseased shells. Someday, somehow, I’ll escape all this, Nellie thought to herself, knowing at the same time that very few of her kind ever did. Except to the graveyard, that is.

Harrison’s sweet factory, where both girls worked, was a squat building with nearly a century of starling droppings covering its roof. Like a great, grey cake with icing on its top, as it had once been described. To those who worked there it was known as the Bastille.

Nellie and Babs clocked on, then took themselves through to the long, soulless room where coats were exchanged for overalls. From there the 150 women who worked for Harrison’s made their way to their various positions. Promptly on the hour the hooter sounded and the machinery ground into motion.

Every Monday morning was the same for Nellie. Coming back afresh to the heavy, sickly, sugar smell that pervaded everything made her stomach turn over.

On starting at the factory two years previously, having left school at fifteen, she’d vomited every morning for a month. If work hadn’t been so desperately hard to come by she’d have chucked the job and gone elsewhere. Trouble was, there wasn’t really an elsewhere to go to.

She was damn lucky to be grafting and appreciated the fact. But that didn’t make the job any easier to live with.

At half past ten, the hooter sounded again announcing a ten minute tea break. Ladies with trolleys were already in position, the workers helping themselves to the poured out cups of tea.

The girls in Nellie’s section assembled as they always did, but although all of them smoked not one lit up; to have done so and been caught would have meant instant dismissal.

‘You should have seen the one I got off with on Saturday night,’ Big Jessie, the section’s self-appointed leader bragged. ‘What a maddie, but nice looking with it.’

‘What happened then?’ Daisy demanded. ‘Did he lumber you?’

‘Oh aye, he took me home all right. But when he asked me, he said he’d run me there so I thought that he had a car.’

‘And didn’t he?’

‘Don’t tell me he produced a pair of sandshoes?’ Agnes said, and everyone laughed. It was an old Glasgow joke.

‘No, a motorbike. An old rattly affair that I thought was going to fall apart right there under me. Up and down Sauchiehall Street we went, giving me a wee hurl as he put it, and then back to my house with all the neighbours coming to their windows and gawping because of the noise the damn thing made.’

‘Are you seeing him again?’ Daisy demanded eagerly.

Big Jessie shook her head. ‘No fear. He was a university student. What would I want with the likes of that? Oil and water, we just wouldn’t mix.’ Looking a trifle wistful she added, ‘But he was good-looking. No denying that.’

‘What about you, Babs?’ Agnes asked.

‘Aye, what about you?’ Big Jessie chimed in. ‘Weren’t you and Nellie going to the jigging? Did you go into town?’

‘We went to the Roxy,’ Babs said.

‘Bloody dump that place,’ Big Jessie said. ‘I much prefer the town dances myself.’

‘We like it,’ Nellie said. She wasn’t going to let Jessie turn up her nose at her. The Roxy wasn’t that bad after all.

‘Did you get a lumber then, Babs?’ Daisy asked.

‘I nearly did. I met this chap who I thought had taken a notion, but he went away to think about it and that was the last I saw of him.’

Big Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘If you fancied him you shouldn’t have let him go. Never give them time to think, that’s always a mistake.’

‘Some of us prefer it that way, having enough confidence in ourselves,’ Nellie said sweetly.

Jessie glared at Nellie. There was a rivalry between them that nothing ever changed.

‘What was I supposed to do, twist his arm or something?’ Babs demanded.

‘There are ways and means,’ Big Jessie replied knowingly.

‘Such as? Throw him to the floor and sit on him?’

The group erupted with laughter at the image of Babs sitting on top of a struggling lad in the middle of a dancehall.

‘What about you, Nellie? Did you meet anyone nice?’ Agnes asked when the hilarity had subsided.

‘Possibly. I’m not quite sure yet,’ Nellie replied mysteriously.

‘You either did or you didn’t,’ said Big Jessie.

‘Was he tall and handsome?’ demanded Daisy.

‘Not too tall. But he was certainly handsome. That right, Babs?’

Babs nodded to the company that that was so.

‘Are you seeing him again?’ Agnes went on.

‘Maybe.’

‘What does that mean exactly?’ Jessie demanded.

‘It means maybe. I haven’t made up my mind yet. We left things sort of open.’

‘In other words you’re meeting him in the hall,’ Big Jessie said. ‘Too mean is he to pay your way in. . .