Free The Good Provider by Jessica Stirling Page A

there was a disgruntled and grudging mood on Craig this morning that she believed might stem from regret at yesterday’s impetuous gesture, at quitting Dalnavert’s secure existence just for her sake. She said nothing. They reached the corner by the church and, walking quickly, rounded out of Walbrook Street into the busy thoroughfare of Dumbarton Road.
    Craig said, ‘I’ll need to look for a job of some sort.’
    She was sensible enough to realise that she must let Craig make the running. He looked untidy, for some reason, and fatigued, as if he had not slept well. The grousing, grumbling note remained in his voice.
    ‘We need a place to ourselves,’ he said. ‘Anywhere that’s private.’
    Kirsty said, ‘Should we not stay where we are at least for a day or two?’
    Craig squinted at her. ‘I thought we were supposed to be gettin’ married? It’s not my idea o’ marriage for you to be in the attic an’ me in the bloody cellar.’
    ‘We’ll look for some place, Craig. It’s a good idea.’
    Her response seemed to placate him and, for the first time that morning, though it was broad daylight and the pavement was populated with women, children and elderly men, Craig took her arm in his, drew her against him and kissed her on the mouth.
    Kirsty put her modesty aside, let her lips linger.
    ‘I can’t wait,’ Craig said. ‘Last night was a torment.’
    Kirsty said, ‘What can we afford, Craig?’
    ‘Somethin’ decent,’ Craig said. ‘Some sort o’ place where we can be man an’ wife.’
     
    It was, so she told herself later, all Craig’s fault. If Craig had not encouraged her to ignore the cut-price stalls and bargain-basements that abounded on the nether edge of Anderston and Argyle Street and accompany him instead to the block-long fashion house of Allardyce and Prosser where, on annual pilgrimages, his mother bought all her clothes, then the spending spree might never have begun.
    Armed with a paper street map that he purchased along with a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes, Craig confidently led his lady-love to Charing Cross and into Sauchiehall Street, a distance of some two miles from Agnes Frew’s boarding-house. Here, on the sharp corner of Spring Street, eight great pavement-level plate-glass windows displayed modes, mantles and millinery.
    Wise in the ways of retailing, Messrs Allardyce and Prosser did not clutter their spacious floors with household goods and domestic commodities to distract and depress their customers with reminders of life’s harsh realities. Within the precincts of the fashion house reality was full-length mirrors and racks of gowns. Between the broad glass-topped counter slender plaster models were decked in handmade laces and Swiss embroidery, in frilly little capes of peau de soie and coats of chiffon glacé , tea-jackets and Empire gowns, delaine blouses, slips and stoles and nainsook camisoles. Lighting was discreet and indirect, ‘trying-on’ rooms plush and private. The assistants, all female, had been selected for their looks and trained to flatter, cajole and serve as conspirators in acts of outrageous extravagance.
    Stunned by the window displays, Kirsty could hardly believe her ears when Craig instructed her to walk inside and buy whatever she fancied, plus a hand-sized luggage basket to give truth to her lie to Mrs Frew. Shopping for anything except ‘buttons and pins’ was a heady new experience for Kirsty. She had never had a penny to call her own, had never enjoyed the exhilaration of shopping for its own sake, an exercise that she was soon to learn lay on a higher plane than mere acquisition. Even so, at that stage it was still Kirsty’s intention to restrict herself to buying stockings, summer-weight drawers, two vests, a nightgown and, perhaps, a one-and-ninepenny skirt to replace the rags she had travelled in. Craig was airily insistent; buy something nice and suitable for city wear. She was no farmyard skivvy now, was she? Soon, indeed, she