Roses of Winter by Murdo Morrison Page B

was only a third full. Betty blushed a deep red and started to protest, but Mary held up her hand. “Ah’m sorry Betty, it’s jist aw been too much for me, ye know?” Betty nodded, mollified.
      Mary heated up the kettle and poured a generous quantity of whiskey into two teacups, mixed in some sugar and hot water and stirred each cup vigorously. “Here, take some o’ this,” she insisted, forcing a cup into first Ella’s and then Willie’s hands.
    For Willie and Ella the next few days were a waking nightmare. Somehow they managed to get through that first day, closely watched over by Betty and Mary. They slept poorly, catching a little now and then when pure exhaustion couldn’t be denied.
    On Friday night the bombers returned to Clydebank, and they winced at each distant explosion and shrank deeper into themselves. It was not until the Saturday that they were able to return to the place that had once been May’s street. Many in the close came with them, and when they saw the extent of the destruction, they held onto each other and searched for words to make sense of it.  
    For a brief while they held onto the irrational hope that maybe May and her family had gone out somewhere and had missed the bombs and would turn up again as right as rain. They went to every official looking person they could find to ask if they had seen them and, like many others. put up notices inquiring about their whereabouts. But they knew that May had been expecting Ella that night and would have been at home. And Tam didn’t drink, so he would not have been down at the pub. Once Willie and Ella accepted that they were really gone, they had to face another harsh reality. No trace of May or Tam or their child was ever found. They had simply vanished from the face of the earth, crushed and atomized into nothingness. They were to be denied even the simple comfort of a proper funeral.
    The people in the close did what they always did when tragedy struck one of their own.   They came together in tangible expressions of sympathy that they knew could not really dull the pain but were ways in which they might express their little community’s sense of loss. A collection was taken up in the close and up the street. People would drop in with some hot soup or scones and keep the bereaved company by the fire. But it was one visitor in particular who was to make a great deal of difference to Ella.
    On the following Monday, Willie had gone back to his work, and Ella was sitting alone by the fire when there came a soft knocking at the door. There was a pause, and then the knocking resumed, a little louder this time. Ella roused herself and walked heavily to the door. When she pulled back the door and saw who was waiting, she drew in her breath. Standing on the landing, clutching a neat parcel, wrapped in tissue paper, was Bessie McIntyre. She looked uncertainly at Ella who stared back.  
           After an awkward silence, Bessie said, “May I come in please, Ella?”  
           Ella nodded and stepped back to let her through the door. Bessie stepped over the threshold and followed Ella through to the kitchen. She picked her way carefully through the dimly lit room. The blinds were down, the sign of a house in mourning.
    Ella invited her to sit in Willie’s armchair and sat down on one of the plain kitchen chairs she pulled out from the table. Suddenly, Ella remembered her manners. “Wid ye like some tea, Mrs. McIntyre?”
      “Oh yes, that would be very nice. But please, would you call me Bessie?”  
    Ella, who had hardly spoken two words to this woman in all the years they had lived up the same close, was reminded of how well spoken Bessie was. “Aye, if that’s all right wi’ you,” agreed Ella who busied herself with the ritual of making the tea.  
    Bessie looked up at Ella, and her next words came out in such a gentle and kind manner that Ella put down the teapot and turned to look at her. “I just wanted you to know how