And Those that Would Have Been Their Sons .....Chapter 15

Post by **AnneM** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 7:51 pm

At long last. This has been wip for such a long time. Believe it or not it was written before the recent WDYTYA programme.

In case anyone gets offended, the views of the characters are their own and not necessarily those of the author. Writing in the present day is a minefield.

And Those that Would Have Been their Sons………

“But don’t you want to know about your Scottish heritage?”

“How many ways is it possible to say No?” The tall young man seated at the computer runs his hands in exasperation through his short blond hair. “Right now I want to finish my assignment so will you please go away!”

When his companion merely laughs at these words of dismissal he swings round and turns his bright blue gaze on her. She is lying on his bed, at the moment an unwelcome distraction, one delicate ankle balanced on the other up-crooked, be-jeaned knee. Her red hair is fanned across his pillow and he has to quash the familiar, treacherous rush of desire.

“Don’t you have the same assignment to complete?”

“Finished” says she complacently “You would have been too if you had started sooner.”

He shakes his head. Though he knows himself to be a good scholar, always among the first few in the class, he cannot compete with her quick brain. Her contradictions baffle him. She is interested in everything and he can only wonder at a mind which, while often seeming as inconstant as a butterfly, can also be razor sharp and have vice like tenacity. This abundance of mental and physical energy is totally at variance with her appearance. Barely 5’2” tall she is so pale and delicate that in his more fanciful moments he thinks of her as a fairy child. Let the other guys fall for their all American beauties. One glance from the grey green eyes, now sparkling at him through mercifully dark lashes is enough to hold him fast. However his annoyance is real.

“Becky, why are you bugging me with this? I’ve told you before I’m not interested.”

“But it’s just so fascinating. Mom has traced our ancestors back to the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Do you know they left Scotland in the 1860s?”

“I’d be more impressed if your ancestor was Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“Don’t be such a Yank. Next you’ll want to prove you’re descended from Braveheart or Rob Roy. My ancestors were just ordinary folks but it’s great to find out about the way they lived, all the kids they had. So many of them died when just little babies. How sad is that? Anyway with a name like Neil Grant you should be interested in Scottish stuff.”

“Yours is Rebecca Mendelssohn but I haven’t seen you reading the Torah.”

“I have read it…….well some of it.”

“Yeah, and the Koran and the Vedas and the New Testament. Can you never keep your mind on one thing? You should be studying something fluffy like American Lit. or Women’s Studies” Neil can’t keep the scorn from his voice.

Becky tries to look indignant. “Mom says it’s very scientific. You formulate a hypothesis, test it against the data and revise it if it doesn’t work. She’s even been to classes about how to do it right.”

“Your Mom needs to get back to work,” he ripostes and immediately regrets his hasty words as Becky’s mood changes from teasing to gravity.

“Yeah, you’re right. But she’s lost all her confidence since she got sick and this genealogy’s been so good for her. I’d say it’s been a life saver. It’s funny how it worked out. Her oncologist asked her if there was a history of cancer in the family and she was shocked when she realised she didn’t know. So she started rooting about in the records and the bug bit. I think it took her mind off things. Before that we knew lots about Pop’s family but almost nothing about Mom’s. At least we discovered that her cancer isn’t genetic.”

Neil is relieved that Becky has taken his crass comment so well but still wishes he had said nothing. The effect of Eileen Mendelssohn’s illness had shocked him almost as much as it had her own family. Perhaps it was because she had seemed so invincible that her weakness was now so distressing. She had worked in the Path Lab in the hospital and spent her so called leisure hours occupied with her numerous home improvement projects and Church activities. In appearance and character an older version of Becky, she left her family and friends breathless with her energy and enthusiasm for life. She had clearly never believed that anything like this could happen to her and from the day she discovered the lump in her breast all her confidence and ebullience seemed to vanish leaving her anxious and unsure.

Her family had believed that once her treatment was over and she was given the all clear she would regain her old joie de vivre but to their consternation this had not happened. It seemed that the psychological scars would be more enduring than the physical ones.

Whenever she felt well enough, she had spent hours at the PC researching or visiting discussion groups while shrinking from contact with her friends. Becky had remonstrated with her, reminding her that she did not really know these people.

“Yes I know” she replied “but they don’t look at me and feel sorry for me. They don’t know I’ve got cancer. Online I am who I want to be. No-one can see I’ve got no hair. And anyway I feel that I know them and they know me and not my illness.”

With that Becky had to be satisfied if still worried about her mother’s increasing isolation. As her newly acquired hobby seemed to distract her the family could only be glad of it.

Now, however, Eileen’s enthusiasm is proving a curse for Neil.

“Becky,” he says “You just don’t get it. You haven’t spent all your life listening to the family legend, hearing Grand daddy going on and on about why we all have to be medics.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You’ve heard it before.”

“Just humor me.”

“If I tell you just once more will you go away and let me work?”

“Go and catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root” intones his anglophile beloved pensively.

“And you can take your obscene British poetry with you.”

“Oo” replies Becky, “Now it doesn’t just look like a jock, it sounds like a jock.”

Neil casually crumples a sheet of paper and throws it at her. She bats it back at him.

“Okay, okay, just the bare bones but you have to remember that it’s just a family story and it almost certainly didn’t really happen like that. Then you must get out of here.”

“I think I’ll try to write an up to date version of that poem. What do you think?”

“Are you going to listen or what?”

“Yea, yea, get on with it.”

“OK well this is how Grand-daddy tells it. I’m sure I’ve heard it often enough. Great grand mom Barbara Grant was the daughter of a rich farmer near Perth in Scotland. She was spoiled and headstrong and always used to getting her own way. So when she got out of High School, or whatever they called it, she didn’t want to get married like girls did then. She decided she wanted to be a doctor. There weren’t many women medical students but she bugged her family till they agreed to let her go to Edinburgh Medical School. When she was there she met another medical student and they fell in love. Then war broke out and he went off to be a soldier, not an army doctor like grand-dad was in the Second World War but a regular soldier. So he was away fighting and she was back in Edinburgh keeping up with her studies. He must have got home on leave because the story goes that on his last leave or whatever he made her promise to be a good doctor in c se he never came back. And then he went and got himself killed. Poor girl she found out she was pregnant but she was determined to keep her word to her sweetheart or fiancé or whatever he was so she hid her pregnancy till she’d finished her studies. I don’t see how that can be right but that’s how the story goes.

When the war was over she found she couldn’t get work because everyone knew she was an unwed mother so she decided to leave Scotland. I think her family were quite glad she was going because of the shame. At first she planned to go to Canada but then out of the blue she got a letter from her best friend from school who was married to a guy in the British State Department. He was working in DC. She wrote back and her friend invited her to come out and that’s how she ended up here and not in Canada.”

He allows the inevitable “Shame, you’d have made a good Canuck” to pass without comment.

“Anyway she put on her Grandma’s wedding ring, called herself Mrs Grant and made out she was a war widow which I guess in a way she was. Over here she soon got work in a Children’s Hospital in Baltimore.”

Becky sighs and swings round to sit on the edge of the bed. “That’s so romantic. She must have been so brave. I didn’t think people did that before they were married then.”

“Well I guess with the war and the danger and all that.”

“Do you know his name, your great grand-daddy?”

“Sure, she called my Grand-dad after him and he is Malcolm McCallum Grant, so his father was Malcolm McCallum but she always called both of them Callum.”

“Callum McCallum” Becky murmurs reflectively “That’s kinda cute.” She seems to be pondering something and shows no sign of leaving. “You know you could have kin still in Scotland. Mom belongs to a couple of chatrooms and you would not believe the number of people who find cousins they never knew about.”

“If they’re anything like my Aunt Martha I don’t want to know about them. Anyway Grand-daddy says that Callum was born in Scotland but his family went to Africa when he was a little kid. They were missionaries or something like that.”

“You know I’d really like a coffee. If you get me one I promise I’ll go away.”

Defeated, Neil reluctantly leaves his work to head for the kitchen. When he returns, a cup in either hand he is horrified to see Becky sitting at the computer.

She laughs “Don’t worry. I’ve saved your stuff and only minimized it but look,” her excitement is palpable, “I’ve found him.”

“Found who?”

“Callum, stupid”

“What do you mean, you’ve found him?”

“Found the record of his death and where he’s buried. Mom showed me this website with all the British soldiers who died in the Wars. She found some of our kin there. It’s real sad. They were all so young. See, there were two Malcolm McCallums. One was from Glasgow but I’m sure this is your guy, Lieutenant Malcolm McCallum died 5th March 1917, son of Dr Hugh and Sarah McCallum. The address is in Africa so that’s definitely him. His daddy was a doctor too. He was only 22; that’s about our age.”

“Despite himself, Neil feels stirrings of interest. He can’t help thinking about this young man, his great-grandfather; what had he been through, what did he look like? Nonetheless he repossesses his computer.

Becky is in reflective mode. “I guess I had kin who fought on both sides in that war. It’s difficult to know what it was all about.”

“Wasn’t it because they shot that guy who was named after a British rock band?”

To add a little spice to their relationship Neil and Becky tend to play the private game of “Dumb hick” and “Smart city chick.” Though Neil’s parents have bought a big rambling farmhouse over the state line in Virginia, his father travels in to work every day in Baltimore and Neil attended his private high school there, so their backgrounds are in fact depressingly similar, urban, middle-class.

When his attempt at wit is greeted with a glare, Neil realises that Becky is deadly serious and not in the mood for games.

“The second war, deciding which side to be on in that one was a bit of a no-brainer. But the first always seems a bit pointless and so many young men died.”

Neil tries to lighten the mood. “Shall we go to Europe sometime? Visit Scotland and even see the battlefields in France. I’d love to climb the Eiffel Tower.”

“Dream on. My Daddy’s not a rich plastic surgeon.”

“No your Daddy’s just a poor PA lawyer. Hard life, ain’t it?”

Becky laughs. “I guess I’d love to go but I don’t know if I’d be OK going to Germany. It might be too difficult.”

Neil nods. “I can see that would be hard. Your folks got away just in time.”

“Yeah, Great grand-daddy was over in Scotland on business when his business partner there begged him not to go back but to send for his wife and family instead. So he did that. Aunt Hetty told me all about it. They weren’t allowed to take much money out with them so great grandma went secretly to a family friend and bought diamonds. She and the great aunts sewed them into the hem of their underpants.”

“Panties don’t have hems.”

“They did then, Anyway. Grand-dad, Great Grandma and Aunt Hetty were OK about going but Aunt Lotte was so upset, crying and screaming. She didn’t want to leave her sweetheart. It’s funny. His name was Friedrich and the Greats didn’t really approve of him because of his family. Mine were not orthodox but Friedrich’s were totally assimilated. They didn’t keep kosher and used to drive their car on the Sabbath. Aunt Hetty said they might as well have been goyim.”

“No Yiddish!”

“OK. Gentiles”

“They went to the opera and to dinner with the Mayor and everything. When things started to get hot I guess they thought their important friends would help them.”

“I take it they didn’t”

“Nope. It’s a tragic story but quite romantic. Amazingly, Friedrich survived the war. Because he was young and strong he was put in a labour camp. When the war was over he came back to Hamburg but everyone was gone. His mother, his father, his sister and even her little children all went to the gas chambers. By this time our family was in America. In fact we came before the war. As soon as she could Lotte got back in touch with one of her Christian friends and that friend told Friedrich where to find her. He managed to get on a boat and came looking for her. She hardly recognised him because he was so thin and was wearing a yarmulke. From hardly being Jewish at all he had become very devout and a total Zionist. No matter how he had changed, Lotte still loved him. Hetty thinks she always believed he would come for her and had never stopped waiting for him. She wouldn’t date any other boys though she was very beautiful and had lots of offers. They got married and went to live in Israel.”

“Do you know what happened to them there?”

“No, we knew they went to a kibbutz but then we lost touch. I don’t think Friedrich could cope with my family not being Zionists. They might have been killed in one of the wars there for all I know.”

Neil looks at Becky. “You’re quite a mixture girl!”

“You’re not joking. Basically I’m a combination of all the jetsam from Europe that washed up on the shores of the good old US of A. Mom’s folks moved because they were driven off their land by the laird. Lots of them died in Scotland or on the way here.”

Briefly as Neil looks at her he feels disoriented and sees Becky but not Becky, a shadowy figure, almost her double, a young woman dressed in rough woollen clothing, a shawl over her head. With one hand she clutches a toddler and on her other hip balances a baby in a shawl. She gazes out into the bay at the ship that will take her from her native land into the unknown.

As quickly as the vision comes it vanishes and he returns to the Twenty first Century. Was it a folk memory? No, he doesn’t believe in that post modern garbage; more likely a half-remembered TV programme.

The moment is broken when the shamelessly 21st Century Becky says, “Hey, I’ve got my updated poem:
Go buy an SUV and vote for Bush…
“What rhymes with Bush?”

“Tush, as in get your cute little one out of here!”

Becky walks up behind him and leans over his shoulder crossing her arms over his chest and kissing his cheek. “Old fashioned boy” she says affectionately.

“Well ass and butt don’t rhyme with Bush…. No jokes, just go!”

“OK” she says fondly tugging at his earlobe with her perfect teeth.

“Later” he sighs gently pushing her away.

Finally complying, Becky heads for the door but not before slipping a precious piece of paper bearing Callum’s details into her purse.

“Mom and I are going to have such fun with this” she murmurs to herself.

Neil swings round in his chair. “What did you say?”

“I said ‘The Orioles suck!”

“Whatever.” Refusing to be drawn Neil simply watches her as she leaves and then bends his head again to his work, firmly in the present, all thoughts of ancestors flown.

Well that's all folks. Hope you all enjoyed meeting Sarah and her family. Anything that isn't specified I leave to you dear readers to decide such as: Was James really cheating on Caroline?
Who is your favourite character if they are worth even thinking about to that extent? I know who mine is.
Who among the present day researcher will get nearest to the truth? I know who my money is on.
Will Becky and Neil ever meet Jenny and Susan on the internet.

Yes I know they don't exist but they're all real to me and I am struggling to let them go back into their own little world!

Anne

rdem · Post by **rdem** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:23 pm

Well Anne M:
thank you very much, here I was telling myself that I HAVE to be out the door by 7:00 am when I found your story and was totally capivated, now I'm late .<smile>. Nicely done...so what's next?

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:35 pm

I can only echo what I imagine are the thoughts of many others, to the effect that I hope that this is the first of a another series of stories, involving this couple.

I don't want in any way to put any pressure on you, Anne, - just a very, very pretty please

David

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 3:54 pm

Awh Anne....I was ever hoping your extensive period of silence would lead to something like this =D> Thank you thank you thank you

!! I love it!!

I know...you're a busy woman...you have work and kids and so many demands on your time...but just remember there are some of us who will drop everything to gladly indulge in a wee escape with one of your tales.....

til the next one.....
Jean

Post by **joette** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 4:00 pm

I Four it what a lovely tale.You so accuratelty & so delicatelty without contrivance tell of how the misunderstood tales of our ancestors are retold.
Sometimes hard to believe it is not fiction.Does this mean you will be off to the USA & Israel for "research" purposes?
When are you sending off your tales to a publisher? I even have a nickname for you.????

Post by **AnneM** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:26 pm

Thanks for the kind words folks. I guess that in my mind that was the end of the series and my inspiration is not running high at the moment. From quite early on all the episodes concerning Adam, Effie, Ninian, Sarah and their descendents existed in my head and now they are all written out.

However maybe Becky's family need an airing at some point. Perhaps the young woman Neil Grant saw will make herself known. If I were to dream up any more family for thr Kerrs McCallums and Redpaths I'd have to start a file on my family history programme instead of scribbled trees on bits of paper!!

Anne

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:31 pm

AnneM wrote:snipped.......

....... I'd have to start a file on my family history programme instead of scribbled trees on bits of paper!!

Anne

How do you think that Ian Rankin keeps track of John Rebus and all the characters and events over the many books

David

Post by **AnneM** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:58 am

Aye but he's a pro. Having said that there is nothing that annoys me more in a book or series than continuity errors. What a sad person.

Anne

That and rubbish writing.

Post by **joette** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:07 am

Me too sometimes it is so glaringly obvious & you wonder what the editor & proof reader were being paid for.
It is quite funny,not that I approve you understand but when I read library books with glaringly obvious continuity/factual errors & some previous reader has added their correction in the margin.
What passes for literature in a lot of cases leaves me cold I want a good story with well crafted & believable people.Uhumm just like yours!!

Post by **AnneM** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:12 pm

Just in case by any stretch of the imagination anyone wants to know the running order of all the titles in the series, here they are in chronological order (not counting the Halloween one)

1. Another more troublesome irregular marriage
2. Effie Goes Home
3. The Meeting
4. Family Values
5. More Family Values
6. Fast Forward
7. The Homecoming
8. The Dark Night of Ninian's Soul
9. In the Garden
10. The Return of the Campbells
11. A Short Coda
12. Greater Love
13. Ripples from the Stone
14. Conclusions
15. And those that would have been their sons

You will note that I am having trouble parting with them all and even find myself feeling sorry that Sarah never knew of her grandson from Callum!! Yes folks I am finally losing it completely!

Anne