Page 39 of The Rebel of Seventh Avenue

Aidan stayed for three weeks, diligently working through every single detail of the business, how it might run whether we had a war or not, making contingency plans, deciding on the ratio of outerwear to hosiery, but when he wasn’t working he kept Jessica busy, spoiling her with toys and ice cream, taking her to see Netta and her family.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to go and see your family?’ I asked towards the end of his visit.

‘Ooooh, no. I don’t think that would be wise.’

After a busy day in the mill we were winding down over an early evening drink.

‘Are you certain? I don’t want you to get on that ship and have any regrets.’

He furrowed his brow, his head on one side. ‘What makes you say that?’

I sighed. ‘I’m finding that now I’m back here in Scotland, and perhaps because I’m now a mother and I want my child to know about her father, I’ve been wondering about my own father. What happened to him, why did he leave? Maw never, ever spoke about him. I was too young to know anything. Netta always told me that Maw was better off without him. Is he dead or alive? Where did he go to? Is he still in Edinburgh? Maybe he never moved away, and was nearby the whole time, keeping an eye on us, making sure we lived a good life.’

‘I think you’ll find that I’m far better off without my family and they are better off without me. There are no regrets there.’

On Aidan’s last day, with his bags packed and last-minute details finalised in the office, we had a few minutes to kill before we needed to leave for the train station. He was twitchy, unable to sit still, pacing up and down just like an expectant father, so I suggested a final walk through the factory to say his goodbyes.

His flamboyance almost brought the mill to a standstill as he kissed some of the girls, shook hands with the men on the knitting machines, chatted up the tea lady. As much as his constant presence had exhausted me and made me wish he was already away in America, I knew that we’d all miss him, his enthusiasm, his oblique ideas, his thirst for life.

In the linking room he chatted easily with Jack Lewis, who oversaw the linking and binding, eventually coming over to me, a query on his face.

‘Who’s that quiet girl beside Jack?’ he asked, his voice full of curiosity. She was a slight woman with mousy-brown hair, straight and held back by a folded scarf, knotted at the nape of her neck. Her deep-blue eyes – strangely familiar – contrasted with her too-red lips and the dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights.

‘Maura Lewis. Jack’s big sister.’ I paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘She is the spitting image of you.’ His words hung in the air between us. ‘Any relation?’

‘Not that I know of,’ I said too easily, but now that I looked at her properly, now that he’d pointed it out, I could see the resemblance – the same dead-straight hair, the small, delicate hands, the way she held her shoulders. But she’d been so quiet, so easy to overlook, as if she’d been purposefully hiding in the shadows.

‘Jack was telling me that he’s expecting to be called up any minute. As a Territorial he’ll be the first off.’ He kept his gaze fixed on Maura. ‘You know, she really could be your younger sister.’ A heavy pause. ‘Maybe your questions about your father could soon be answered.’

Those words echoed loudly in my ears as the implications of what he’d said sank in. I had to steady myself, feeling as if there was a shifting beneath my feet.

‘Too much of a coincidence,’ I replied a little more sharply than I intended. I checked my watch. ‘We must go. I don’t want you to miss your train. Hawick has had its fill of Aidan Cruickshank.’ And I marched him through the front entrance and to my car. He gave me the warmest of hugs, so meaningful that I found my eyes filling with tears. We hung on to each other for too long. When would I see Aidan again – two months or two years? We all expected the war to be over quickly, but that had been said before. What would I do without his sharp wit, his brilliant brain, his immaculate dress sense and beautiful clothes, the way he could read my thoughts, and finish my sentences? In some ways we were so well suited, in others we were polar opposites. I gave an enormous sigh as he extricated himself from my lingering clutch.

‘Now don’t you dare get all sentimental on me, Miss Maisie McIntyre,’ he teased, touching my cheek with a crooked finger, as if he was wiping a tear away. ‘Remember, there’s always the telephone. You can call me whenever you need, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning my time.’

Telephone calls to America were hard work; the line crackled, the voices were distant, and you often had to shout to make yourself heard. I’d come off my weekly calls with Oti exhausted and frustrated, wishing I could simply find myself in our studio in Manhattan ready to talk, surrounded by the paraphernalia of couture, not sitting in a cold office encased by dark-wood panelling, earth-coloured tweeds and forest-green wool samples.

‘I will sit in my colourful house with all my favourite things, reminding me that there is a colourful world out there. And when this war is over, I will jump on the first ship I can find. Hell, I might even jump on the Pan American Clipper service and see how hard a thirty-hour flight across the Atlantic can be. If Carmel Snow can do it, then so can I.’

‘That’s the spirit. That’s the Maisie that I know.’

I saw Aidan off at the station like some forlorn, lovesick girlfriend. I had my handkerchief in my hand trying not to let the tears come again, feeling as if thick walls of fog were closing in on me and that my lungs were being stifled by poisonous gases. I shuddered, wiping my face with my hand and pushing away those negative thoughts, checking my watch and rushing to pick Jessica up from school, soothed by her soft, warm hand in mine, glad of her childish chatter and girlish laughter, as we made our way home.

One month after war had been declared and one month after the genial Jack Lewis had been deployed to France, I received a visitor at my office. Mr Les Lewis, father of Jack and Maura, appeared, red-eyed and puffy-faced, dressed in a rough brown jacket, buttoned at the front, a collarless shirt and trousers that bagged at the knees, falling below his paunchy stomach and shoes that could have benefitted from a dust-off. His hair had been wetted and was plastered across his head.

I asked him if he’d like a cup of tea and whether he’d like to sit down, perhaps he’d like a tour of the mill, see where his daughter worked. I don’t think the old Maisie would have done this, I believe she would have cut to the chase and asked him what he wanted.

‘I don’t care where she works. It’s you I want to see. It’s Maisie McIntyre that I need to have a wee word with.’

The way he talked was unnerving, a little too familiar, as if he’d known me for years. I shifted in my chair.

‘Well, Mr Lewis, what can I do for you?’ I asked.

‘So, Maisie,’ he said, leaning back in his armchair as if he was in his own front parlour. ‘It’s about your sister.’

I frowned. ‘What could you possibly want with my sister. She lives in Edinburgh; she wouldn’t know you.’ There was something about his expression that suggested smugness, the possession of knowledge that I had no notion of.

‘Not that sister, your other sister.’ He paused for effect, a gleeful provocation radiating from him. ‘Maura.’

I put my palms calmly on my lap, made myself breathe. There was nothing about him that I recognised, nothing that pulled me to him, no paternal strings tugging at my heart.

‘So, the penny drops. Your father is sitting here right in front of you. What a turn-up for the books, eh?’

Why was I so caught off-balance? That suspicion that Aidan had voiced, hadn’t it been a joke? ‘But…’ I stuttered.

‘But… how is it that I’ve risen from the dead? But… how is that we find ourselves sitting here, sipping dainty cups of tea? But… how is it that the infamous Maisie McIntyre finds herself lost for words?’ His voice was bitingly unpleasant.

Quite suddenly, without fanfare or forewarning, a flash of memory, fuzzy and unformed – loud voices and unknown thuds heard through the thin walls, holding my sister in our makeshift bed, an unwanted fear. These fleeting images had followed my nighttime dreams throughout my life but, until now, I’d never understood what they were.

‘What do you want?’ I asked, keeping a facade of calm, pushing down that old fear.

‘Isn’t it obvious? I want the money, the equivalent of the one hundred and fifty pounds you stole. My money, money your maw was keeping from me, money she hid from me, money I risked all to get.’

My stomach dropped away; I had no idea that money had been my father’s. I closed my eyes and thought of what my mother must have put up with, the repercussions of keeping that money from him, keeping up the lie.

I lit a cigarette, drawing so deeply I began to feel a little dizzy.

‘Filthy habit, that. Dangerous in a place like this.’ There was tangible vitriol in his voice.

I continued to smoke, drips of courage beginning to return with each drag as I started to consider what to do. I knew this man was a failure, a bully that had been thwarted by our maw. If she could do it, then surely so could I. Putting my feet up onto my desk, I feigned a nonchalance that I didn’t yet feel.

‘So, our maw kept the money from you,’ I retorted with a bitter smile, feeling anger rising in my chest. ‘I always knew she was a strong woman. But what about you? Seems like you ran away.’

‘I had no choice, I had to leave.’ He batted back his answer. ‘You don’t need to know the details. What matters is that you give it back, otherwise there’ll be repercussions. Career-ending repercussions.

‘I have it on good authority that you stole that money, never telling Netta, that you ran away, pretending to be a rich widow, lying and cheating your way into New York society, pretending to be someone you are not.’

I smiled at him, the kind of smile I’d learned in New York drawing rooms, the one that could cut like a blade. The evidence was long gone, the money spent, the old mourning dress sold. Let him dig all he wanted – he would never find proof of any of it.

‘Mr Lewis. Is that your real name? Or is it McIntyre?’

‘McIntyre.’

‘Well, I think I’d rather call you Lewis.’ I stood up and walked around to the other side of my desk, leaning on it so that I was towering over him.

‘I will give you the equivalent of what was one hundred and fifty pounds forty years ago. In return you will never tell Maura who I am. You will leave today, right now.’ My voice was rigid. ‘I will drive you to your house, you will pack your bags, you will leave a goodbye note, I will drive you to the train station, buy you a ticket to wherever you want to go, and I will watch you leave.

‘If…’ I paused for effect, giving him my steeliest glare. ‘If you ever dare return here, or tell Maura who I am, I will set the dogs on you.’ I crossed my arms, my heart still racing.

We stared. Les Lewis’s bravado wobbled slightly, he blinked, his mouth twitched.

I stood up and walked to the door. Opening it I put my head around the corner and said, ‘Miss Brown, I’m just taking Mr Lewis back home and then I need to go into the bank. I’ll be out for an hour or so.’ I turned back to my office.

‘So good of you to pop in and see me,’ I said in my loud, efficient voice. ‘So good to get to know you, Mr Lewis. I’ll let Maura know you dropped by.’

As he stood up I took him by the elbow and walked him out of the room. Making our way to my car I said, ‘Whilst you pack your bags I will go to the bank and get your money. Once I have seen you safely onto the train I will give it to you. And that, Mr Lewis, will be the last of it.’

Two hours later I stood on the platform of Hawick station and watched the train to Newcastle depart. Les Lewis and a brown envelope full of cash were on board.

As the train disappeared into the distance I lit a cigarette, my hands shaking. My bluster had been all show. A pretence of confidence and self-belief. If he knew about the stolen money, then there was a chance he could find out about the stolen fabric, about the lies I told on the ship to New York. Had he spoken to Netta? If I was exposed would it ruin me? Or would no one care?

I knew that he would return, I knew that he was not a man to pass up the opportunity to extort more money out of me. It had been too easy; I had given in without a fight. But, in the meantime, I could fill up my armoury and be ready to retaliate.

By 1943, with four years of war under our ever-tightening belts, we were all tired, hungry and perpetually anxious. We were sick of the lack of food, fed up with clothes rationing and just as Aidan had predicted, I was bored, not just by war and its deprivations but by the monotony, by the argument over whether we had eggs or porridge for breakfast, no longer cannoli or bagels, the lack of colour in our food, in our clothes, even in our conversation. The hush of the countryside would bang at my eardrums, and I longed for the reassuring discordant cacophony of Manhattan, my only way to counteract that silence being to walk the factory floor and let myself be bombarded by the clatter of the knitting machines. My life was so distant from that in New York: a life of gowns made from yards of silk, my favourite rich, luscious duchess satin, bead-encrusted jackets and the perfect finish of a couture gown; now we were reduced to trousers patched at the knee, faded shirts with turned collars, shoes lined with newspaper.

Putting colour into our days became an obsession. Far away, in New York, Oti and Annina were creating couture, still able to get hold of colourful fabrics, still finding demand for bespoke gowns. But in Hawick, in Scotland, we were suppressed by a severe shortage of fabric, we had no time or energy for embellishments. My own wardrobe became muted, full of flannel and tweed, my designs so dull that I could no longer imagine a life where we dressed in shimmering satins or heavily brocaded silks, beaded bodices or sequined belts. Once I’d described the evening gown as an opportunity for its wearer to blossom, now, in our grey wool suits, we were being made to wither.

Whereas designers such as Hardy Amies and Digby Morton threw their energies into designing uniforms for the women’s services and the government-controlled utility clothing, I couldn’t bring myself to embrace this new world of fashion with heavy regulations and limited choice. Looking back now, I had no right to criticise those garments which were masterpieces of invention in the face of severe shortages.

But colour could be found in unlikely places. Our twice weekly Make Do and Mend session, held in an outhouse next to the factory, gave us the opportunity to make clothes for the evacuees, patch up existing threadbare garments for ourselves, and use blackout material to make trousers, coats and shorts for the children. We were a group of misfit women making a round of misfit clothing using many of the leftover upholstery fabrics I had from the Colour Emporium and any Maison McIntyre material I had brought with me from New York.

We would patch schoolboys’ trousers and our own work clothes with colourful squares of gaberdine, wool and cotton, turning Hawick’s population into a troop of elegant tramps. We lengthened trousers with purple wool, let out skirt waistbands with patterned linen, patched up jacket elbows with fuchsia-pink corduroy.

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening a group of around ten of us would meet, making use of some of the older sewing machines from the factory, some spare tables and any fabric we could get our hands on.

There was Janice, mother of four boys, perpetually harassed, hair falling out of her bun, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright, always working on a wretched pile of boys’ clothes, always recounting the latest mishaps, knee scrapes, fights, football scores, mother-in-law snipes and the noise that four boys under the age of twelve can produce.

Then came Mrs Elliot, a sixty-something, sturdy widow in a uniform of thick tweed skirts, with impenetrable skin-coloured, heavily darned stockings, and solid brown, lace-up brogues: a woman who couldn’t sew, usually breaking a needle, creating a bird’s nest of a mess with precious thread, but a lonely woman who needed these sessions as much as the evacuees needed their patched clothing.

Evie, our newest recruit, was quiet and unobtrusive, her skin sallow from working in the munitions factory, a talented seamstress who worked hard to clothe her three children, despite appearing to only be in her teens. She’d marvel at the colours she was being allowed to use, quietly rebelling against a husband who would have disapproved but was in Africa and hadn’t been heard from for months.

And then there was Joan, always running late, always arriving breathless and dishevelled, always apologising.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Why can I never be on time for anything? You’d never believe it, my mam’s dog got stuck in the outside lav – we couldn’t open the door and it was whining and barking and sending the neighbours round the bend. I had to climb up on the roof and peel away some of the corrugated iron to get in so that I could undo the door from the inside. God knows how he got in there and locked the door!’