‘I can’t,’ I would reply, without knowing why, my face set in a perpetual scowl. His hurt looks wounded me to the core, but I could not help myself.
One of the worst things I did to him was to run away from home. I decided I would hitchhike to London. I set off with two pals, not giving a second thought to the pain it would cause him. When it was discovered that we were gone, he had everyone out looking for us: friends, relatives, the police. Our big adventure was, of course, doomed to failure. We actually made it south of the border but it wasn’t long before we ran out of money and were forced to throw ourselves on the mercy of the police. We were returned home in disgrace by social workers.
Dad was mortified and he lambasted me. Did I know the trouble I had caused? Did I realise how worried he had been? What kind of example was I to my brothers and sister? I stood, head bowed, stung by his words – but for some inexplicable reason a part of me was pleased to be the centre of attention.
I would never again run away from Dad, but it would take me a long time to shake off my recalcitrance. If someone said, ‘Don’t do that, June,’ that is precisely what I would do. What I needed was to be truly loved, to find someone of my own, someone who would make me the centre of his whole world. I would find him. Desperation shines like a beacon, and so often a light in the darkness attracts a predator.
His name was Rab Thomson.
Giselle: As time passed, we were walking to the same destination – but from different starting points …
The woman in the mirror was far less vulnerable than the girl had been. I swept the brush through my gleaming red hair. Ma had been right. The hair I had hated so much as a teenager had become my crowning glory.
It had been a long time since I had first stood in front of this looking-glass, bemoaning my perceived imperfections. I still did not care much for what I saw, but I was safe, perennially cloistered by invisible walls that had been built over so many years by my loving family. My brothers and sisters had long since gone, creating new lives of their own outwith the fortress. I remained. My ‘job’ was still to look after my parents.
My mother’s health had deteriorated badly. She suffered from chronic asthma, which obviously affected her breathing. It was extremely debilitating. She would spend nights in the living room, sleeping in a chair, propped up by pillows. I was never far away. I delighted in being able to look after her – and Da – as they had looked after all of us. I still had no sense that I was sacrificing myself and I had long since come to terms with my detachment from the ‘real’ world. It was a price worth paying. I was content. I saw the good in people, rather than the bad. I had learned how to do that from Ma. She helped her neighbours. She would not pass a beggar without giving him money. She bought sweets for children who had none.
When we were young, Ma and Da would take us on trips, days out in the car, walks in the countryside, strolls along seaside promenades. It was my turn now to chaperone them. I loved them. I loved their safe world. I embraced it. I never wanted to leave it. It might have remained so until one day, at the age of 32, I walked into our local post office with Ma. The man standing behind the polished wooden counter had soft brown eyes and he smiled at me.
His name was Ashok Kalyanjee.
Chapter 2
Love of Our Lives
‘From the beginning, they were brought together by what I call a constellation of symptoms … which would have catastrophic results.’
Ian Stephen
June: Isn’t it so strange how two chance encounters brought all of us to this place?
They were lining the back wall of the dance hall, a posse of young bucks with drinks in one hand and cigarettes in the other. They wore leather and short-sleeved button-down shirts, and affected a couldn’t-care-less attitude. This languid disdain was a smokescreen. Their eyes were watchful, scanning, taking in the ‘talent’.
Saturday-night meat market in Kilbirnie. Everyone looking for something, anything to dispel the gloom and break the Monday-to-Friday monotony. I was 17 and I shouldn’t have been at the over-18s dance, but small-town childhoods are short; everyone grows up quickly when there is so little to look forward to. You might as well get on with a life that is pretty much mapped out for you from the moment you’re born. Go to school, leave school, get a job, marry the first man who is nice to you, have his kids. The line of our horizon struggled to go beyond the edge of town.
I was determined to break the mould. No matter what, I was planning to go to London. I had been saving my ‘tips’ and whatever I could spare from my wages as a trainee hairdresser. The money would take me to the bright lights and freedom. We – the girls – were dancing with each other, waiting for the ‘tap’ on the shoulder. There were few niceties involved in this mating ritual – a grunt, the tap, and if you were fortunate, a mumbled ‘You dancin’?’ Whenever this was said to me, I always had to suppress the urge to reply, ‘Of course, I’m dancin’. What do you think I’m doing, signalling to the boats at sea?’ Of course, I never did. It would have been a break with protocol.
I was fighting a losing battle against the pounding music in a vain attempt to tell my friend Wilma that it was time to go. And then I saw him. He had broken away from the posse and was heading for me, walking across the crowded dance floor through a tobacco haze that transformed his friends into ghosts. I knew instinctively that I was his target. He walked with purpose, his long mane of strawberry-blond hair flowing behind him. Perhaps it wasn’t time to go after all. I signalled to Wilma with my eyes, the semaphore of the dance hall. She looked behind her and turned back to me, making a face.
‘Pig!’ she mouthed silently.
I laughed, the sound drowned by a wall of Pink Floyd. The young man skipped between the dancers. I knew him. In this town there were no strangers. He was a well-known ‘bad boy’. He dispensed with words and I received the tap. He turned and walked to a gap on the floor. I followed. He hadn’t doubted that I would.
From the moment Rab Thomson chose me, he took control.
Giselle: As innocent as I was, I knew he had chosen me …
It was stifling hot. It always was on pension day. The majority of people in Royston, a district in the north of Glasgow, are not well off, least of all the elderly. In the tiny post office section of the corner shop, the old folk had gathered to gossip, catch up with friends and pick up their meagre benefits entitlement. Strong summer sunshine flooded through the window behind me, transforming the security glass on the post office counter into a white, impenetrable wall.
‘Hot!’ I said to my mother. We were in a snaking queue.
‘Not half,’ Ma replied, adding, ‘Won’t be long, though.’
I took Ma shopping every day. They were outings rather than spending sprees. Ma loved looking at things she would never own. She rarely bought anything for herself, but she delighted in choosing ‘mindings’ for her grandchildren. When we got out of here we were going to Ma’s favourite shopping centre at the Parkhead Forge. There she would make her slow and stately progress along the shop fronts, halting every few steps to allow friends and old neighbours to pay their respects. If my identity was not apparent, Ma would introduce me by saying, ‘This is my baby, Giselle!’
I was 32 years old.
I say that without rancour. Never for one minute did I fall into the trap of believing that I was somehow missing out. How could I, with so much love around me? I had always been content and happy, and I could not conceive of any other way of life.
‘Not long now,’ said Ma, dragging me back from my reverie.
The queue in front of us had been reduced to three people. The glare on the glass had dissipated and I saw a stranger behind the counter. Dark, handsome, a gentle face, a shock of luxuriant hair. Must