“Who does it belong to?”
“My granny and grampa — my father’s folk.”
“What sort of faces have they?”
“Good faces. Kind faces. Lots of character in them.”
“Wrinkles?”
“They’re in their eighties. They live overby in the Cowcaddens. I’d love a record of them. I’d pay you for it.” McCrimmon stood up and slung his cases round him saying, “I suppose they may have some sociological value. Let’s go.”
McCrimmon held aloof while the teacher paid for the coffees but walked beside him up Sauchiehall Street and over Rose Street in the dusk of an autumn evening. The teacher explained he must first buy some presents as he had not visited his grandparents for over a year. “Coloured beads to keep the natives happy, eh?” said McCrimmon. The teacher did not answer. He supposed that McCrimmon’s talent had destroyed normal sympathies by raising him into a bad-mannered class which must be tolerated because it knows no better.
5
They crossed New City Road into a district which two years before had been lively with people and bright with small shops. An advancing motorway now threatened it with demolition so nothing was being replaced or repaired and people with plans for the future had moved out. Pavements were cracked, road surfaces potholed, some tenements obviously derelict. Not every shop was boarded up. In a small general store the teacher bought bread, butter, jam, cheese, eggs, potatoes, tinned corned beef, sardines, beans and stewed pears. The Pakistani owner put all this in a cardboard box which the teacher hoisted upon his shoulder.
He led McCrimmon into a gaslit close and up narrow stairs with the door of a communal lavatory on each half landing. On the third landing he tapped a door with signs of former working-class dignity: a shiningly polished brass door-knob, letter-box and name-plate engraved with the name ROSS.
“Who’s there?” asked an old voice from within.
“It’s me, Granny — Jimmy.”
“O my boy!”
A small neat timidly smiling woman opened the door. She wore spectacles, flower-patterned wrap-round apron and old cloth slippers. She looked much older than the teacher remembered. One reason why he visited her so seldom was that she looked older every time he did so. He said, “I’ve brought a friend, Granny.”
“I’m sure he’s welcome.”
“Hullo hullo Mrs Ross. McCrimmon is the name but you just call me Tony.”
“Fancy that. Come in Mr McCrimmon.”
They entered a small neat room with a recess bed in which the teacher’s father’s father lay perfectly still on his back. A wedge of pillows propped him at a straight angle from waist to head. His eyes were shut, mouth slightly open, spectacles pushed onto brow, hands folded on book on coverlet over stomach.
“How’s Grampa?” the teacher murmured placing the box on a sideboard.
“O don’t ask me,” she sighed, “I’ve given up worrying about him. Just be a bit quiet and we’ll have a sip of tea without being bothered by his nonsense. Or do you want me to make you a meal?” she asked, staring at the groceries.
“No Granny, I’m afraid we can’t stay long. A cup of tea will do.”
“You’re a good wee boy to play Santa Claus with your old folk.”
At the side of the range was a kettle of water which she shifted onto the fire saying, “Take off your coat and sit down Mr McCrimmon.”
Her grandson had already done so.
“Don’t worry about me Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon strolling to the wooden sink before the window. He stood there with his back to the room. The teacher felt dominated by his grandfather’s lean, Caesar-like profile and whispered, “Is his back still bad?”
“Yes but he never speaks about it now.”
“Can’t you get a doctor to him?”
“You know what he thinks about doctors. Come to the fire, Mr McCrimmon. Make yourself at home.”
“Just don’t worry about me Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon without turning round.
The kettle simmered. Mrs Ross brewed a pot of tea asking, “How’s the family?”
“Not bad. All right. You should visit us. You’d like the wee boy.”
“It’s difficult getting away from here without a babysitter.”
She nodded to the bed.
“Aye. She means me,” said his grandfather opening his eyes. “She needna. I can manage without her.”
His distinct low-keyed voice seemed to fill the room. His wife gave an incredulous “Hm!” and laid on the table a plate of biscuits and tea things. Mr Ross adjusted his spectacles with careful arm movements which left the trunk of his body perfectly still, and appeared to resume reading his library book. Mrs Ross poured tea into a mug and three cups. To the mug she added sugar, milk, a long straw, then placed it by the bed on a cabinet holding a chamberpot. The teacher and his grandmother sat at the table drinking tea as McCrimmon, ignoring another invitation to join them, examined something in his hand.
Abruptly Mr Ross said, “How’s the teaching going?”
“On,” said the teacher. “And on. And on.”
“Aye! It’s secure.”
“Secure, yes. Only a sex crime will get me out of it now.”
“And well paid, compared with what most manual workers earn. And worthwhile. Children’s minds need feeding as much as their bodies. A conscientious teacher has every right to respect himself.”
“I would if I was any good at it.”
“If you are bad at it only two explanations are possible: you have not yet learned how to do it properly or you are teaching the wrong thing. What is your pal playing at?”
“This is a light meter Mr Ross,” said McCrimmon watching the instrument in his hand. The teacher said hurriedly, “Tony’s a famous photographer Grampa —”
“Does he meter light from force of habit?”
“Your grandson invited me because I am making a pictorial social survey, Mr Ross, a record of the life of Glasgow. And by life I mean more than the shape of the buildings. I want the world to know how decent, hardworking people live in Glasgow Anno Domini nineteen sixty-five. I doubt I’ll ever find a more decent working-class home than this.”
“You cannae photograph in here Mr McCrimmon!” cried Mrs Ross. “The place is like a midden and I’m no dressed right.”
“Your place is as neat as a new pin Mrs Ross and so are you.”
“I havenae dusted since this morning!”
“I see no dust and what I don’t see my camera won’t show.”
“Don’t let him do it, John!” the woman begged her husband who said as if to himself, “A pictorial social survey. What good will it do?”
“Have you heard of Matthew Brady, Mr Ross?”
“No.”
“Have you heard of the Depression and the American dust bowl and the New Deal?”
“Aye.”
“Well, President Roosevelt was persuaded to set up the New Deal by Matthew Brady’s photographs of how decent honest American working-class families had to live in the American dust bowl. Now, I don’t claim to be another Matthew Brady, but I believe that a photographer without a social conscience is an enemy of the human race. You know as well as I do that thousands of working people — some of them bedridden like you — live in single rooms with an outside lavatory they cannae reach because of the stairs. Not everyone in Britain knows that. Some very well-off folk prefer not to know it. Harold Wilson says he’s going to improve the quality of British life but has anyone shown him what life is like in Glasgow? Harold Macmillan said the British worker has never had it so good. But is it good enough?”