The Heritage You Leave Behind

By Susan Steggall

Glasgow 1948. Twenty-three-year-old sculptor Ellie (Eilean) Gilmartin grew up in the shadow of her father’s torment following his British Army service in World War I. Believing her mother died when she was a toddler, the revelation that Finella left her husband and daughter, leads Ellie to travel to Australia (the country of Finella’s birth) to find out why. After bureaucratic obstacles, psychological and physical threats Ellie discovers the truth about her parents’ difficult lives, in the process learning that she cannot change the past, nor assume responsibility for the deeds of her parents but recognise their transgressions – and leave their tragic heritage behind.

Through the actions of a powerful main opponent Ellie finds hitherto untapped reserves of courage. A steadfast ally shows Ellie the possibility of love, in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Steggall
• Release date: Aug 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9780958196499

Susan Steggall

http://steggalls.com

Book preview

Chapter 1

The sun peeped intermittently from behind a bank of white clouds in a game of now-you-see-me, now-you don’t - as much a sign that spring 1948 was not ready to settle over the city of Glasgow, as it was a tentative promise that better times were ahead. Casting an eye along Buchanan Street, anyone would think that those good times had already arrived: smartly dressed pedestrians crowded the footpaths, a stream of gleaming cars filled the roadway. Fashion conscious young women who had enthusiastically adopted the Government’s request to make their skirts shorter in a drive to save fabric, made the most of this new-found freedom. Buildings, whole and undamaged, sported brightly coloured shop awnings above well-stocked shops - a world away from bomb- ravaged Clydebank.

In September of the previous year, twenty years after Oxford, and more than seventy years after the founding of its first women’s college, Cambridge University voted to admit women as full students - an optimistic step towards equality. In London preparations were gathering apace for July’s Olympic Games - a different kind of optimism even if six years of war had left Britain in austerity mode.

For the youth of Glasgow there was a sense that the future was ours for the taking if we worked hard enough and applied ourselves to the task in hand. I, Eilean (Ellie) Gilmartin, was no exception. I had recently graduated from the Glasgow School of Art and dreamed of a life of creativity and achievement. As I walked northwards along Buchanan Street, I barely gave the shopwindow displays a passing glance. I didn’t care much for the frivolities of fashion; even less for the kind of social life my fellow students enjoyed since the opening up of bars and music venues after the war. Most of my school friends were married; some already had children. With my ‘unnatural’ desire to become a professional artist, I had grown away from them. In any case I didn’t have much spare time, preferring to be out in the woods and fields sketching or at a workbench sculpting. If I ever felt lonely, especially after the recent death of my old dog, Squiff, it was a small price to pay for fulfilling my dream of becoming a sculptor.

Yet the new life I craved was taking its time to unfold. It was two months since I had sent an application for postgraduate study to a prestigious London art school. I spent hours on that submission letter, even more hours arranging my best sculpture pieces to advantage for photographs to be taken by a student with his new camera. I was prepared to wait but even so…

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I was tidying the animal modelling studio after the last class of the day when one of the students rushed in. ‘Mr Dunsmore wants to see you. He said to come straight away.’

‘What for?’

‘Don’t know Miss. ‘Just said it was important.’

I collected my bag and descended to the first-floor office belonging to Alexander Dunsmore, Headmaster at the Glasgow School of Art. He was standing in the open doorway, a sheet of paper in his hand.

‘Come in lass. I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve received a telegram from the Slade School of Fine Art. They have accepted your application and will be sending you a letter soon with the details.’ He handed me a telegram, dated 15 April 1948. ‘The authorities were very impressed with your work. You’re to start in the autumn term. You’ll need to find your own accommodation. You have a couple of weeks to decide.’

I stammered ‘thanks’ before backing out of his office and hurrying to the library to read the telegram properly. The Slade… London… I did a small jig.

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On the way home, I fancied that Glasgow was celebrating with me. Pedestrians walked with a jaunty air; the late-afternoon sun silvered rooftops and chimneys; spring-green leaves brightened the trees lining the streets. As the tram moved into the poorer areas of the city, where washing festooned the alleyways, children played amidst piles of rubble and men still made deliveries by horse and cart, my excitement subsided at the thought of how my aunt would react to the news.

My father had refused to allow me to take art classes and I never found out why. I’d always sensed a shadow hanging over our family - something more, other, than the death of a baby brother and that of my mother shortly afterwards. I rubbed my forehead, as if this physical gesture might strengthen faint memories of adults talking in low voices in darkened rooms, of a long journey and a cold arrival in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t until after my father’s death that I broached the subject of art school with my aunt and guardian Agnes Gilmartin, his sister. Agnes finally, albeit reluctantly, gave me permission to attend art classes.

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As the driver called ‘Last stop,’ I stepped down from the tram, the precious telegram clutched in my hand. I hoped apprehension didn’t show on my face although the butterflies in my stomach threatened to fly free.

It was a short walk to our two-storey house in a suburban cul-de- sac. By a quirk of fate, the spreading canopies of the old trees in a nearby park had protected the deep cream stonework of this row of terraces from the worst of Glasgow’s grime. The estate had originally been planned for the professional classes but had slowly descended the social scale to become a shabbier locality. Aidan Gilmartin had bought his house there (a noble gesture, as Agnes liked to tell me), to be close to his working-class patients.

As I opened the front door, I heard the sound of a man’s voice coming from the sitting room that had once been my father’s surgery. To my surprise it was Blair McDonald, at ease in the armchair I always considered mine. He wore an air of calm assurance. Aunt Agnes looked flustered.

‘Hello Aunt. Good afternoon Blair. What brings you here today?’

‘Agnes asked me in for some of her excellent cake,’ he said, making a show of taking a bite. ‘I don’t know how she does it, with rationing still in place.’

Agnes ignored the compliment. ‘Ellie, come and sit down. We - at least Blair - would like to talk to you, about your future.’

I poured myself a cup of tea and sat on a hardbacked chair, facing the others. Blair had called round several times in the past few months, always asking after my health and if I wasn’t overdoing the ‘art school business’. He’d often hinted that I should be thinking of settling down. I did not want to hear Blair’s suggestions about my future and came straight out with my news.

‘Aunt, I have something exciting to tell you and since Blair is here, he might as well hear it too.’ I waved the precious telegram. ‘I’ve been offered a place at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. It’s a wonderful opportunity, Mr Dunsmore says, and I should think seriously about accepting. It’s like…’ I was going to say ‘a dream come true’ but stopped at the disapproving look on Blair’s face, the outright distress in Agnes’ eyes.

‘I thought you’d be pleased for me,’ I said. ‘It’s a wonderful chance to broaden my horizons as an artist.’

‘Aren’t you satisfied here?’ Blair interrupted roughly. ‘I came to offer you a life of ease and comfort. If you marry me, you will not want for anything. Your aunt thinks it an excellent idea. You could still pursue your art without having to struggle to make a living.’

‘But that’s not what I want! The war’s over; times have changed. Women are deciding their own futures. I want to be a professional sculptor, not dabble in art as a lady’s pastime. I’m not ready to settle down.’

‘That’s enough Eilean,’ Agnes said, twisting a serviette in her hands. ‘There’s no need to be rude. Blair only wants what’s best for you.’ I glared at my adversaries. ‘How do either of you know what’s best for me? I’ve always tried to please you Aunt Agnes, but I see now that will never help me achieve my dream. I mean to do it - with or without your approval.’

A heavy silence descended on the room. I was the one to break it.

‘Thank you, Blair, for your concern - and your proposal of marriage. At the moment neither are what I want.’

Blair placed his cup on the tray, rose slowly out of the armchair, shook hands with Agnes and moved to the door. ‘I strongly recommend you think about my proposal Eilean. I will see myself out.’

From the window I watched his tall figure stride down the path.

Blair was fifteen years older than me. Although most women in the neighbourhood would consider him a ‘catch’, I found him impossibly smug, too aware of his standing in the community as a solicitor and from a family with connections to a minor baronetcy.

I looked around our pleasant sitting-room with its pale blue walls and polished furniture. I had always been happy here but now it was as if the walls were closing in - a prison from which I could see no escape. In desperation, I tried again.

‘Aunt Agnes, why are you so determined I should marry Blair and give up my dream of becoming a sculptor? I thought you would understand.’

‘It’s not suitable for a young woman of your background. London is no place for you. Especially in these times when girls have too many liberties. Art school in London? It wasn’t much use to your mother after she married Aidan.’

‘What? What about my mother? You’ve never told me anything about her. She died when I was two years old. I don’t even know what she looked like.’

Agnes folded her arms tightly across her chest. ‘It’s all in the past and you’d best be forgetting I said that.’

‘How? Neither you nor Father would talk about her, ever. It seemed as if there was a secret that everyone knew except me.’ I waited for a response from Agnes. When none was forthcoming, I continued my tirade.

‘Father was always angry, wasn’t he? What’s wrong with this family? Why is wanting to be a sculptor such a bad thing? It’s the twentieth century, not the nineteenth.’

Agnes looked old beyond her sixty years. ‘It’s a sad story,’ she whispered. ‘But I am not at liberty to tell you. I promised Aidan.’

What did you promise my father? Surely the present should not be held hostage to the past. He died years ago. I am alive.’

‘One day you’ll understand,’ Agnes said.

‘Understand what? How can I understand when I don’t know what the problem is? Am I to sit here and become a lonely old woman like you?’ Hearing Agnes’ sharp intake of breath I knew I had gone too far but once started I could not stop. ‘Is that why you are pushing me to marry Blair, so I’ll stay here where we’d almost be neighbours? So, I’d forget about being a sculptor?’

I waited for a reply, but Agnes’s head was bowed. ‘I’ll be in my room,’ I said in a defiant tone.

I raced up the stairs to my bedroom and my treasured possessions: a writing desk and a bedside table from Aidan’s mother; a brightly coloured patchwork quilt made by Agnes; two plaster busts I had created of fellow students. The bronze dancing girl that had not only earned me top marks in my final exams but also the post of junior sculpture tutor, took pride of place on the desk. But there was nothing that belonged to my mother. No photo, no jewellery nothing, except…

There was one small object that I had retrieved from the ashes of the bonfire made of mother’s belongings by my father when, as an eight- year-old, I had tried to enter her bedroom. It was a medallion, the only marks recognisable on its scarred surface, ‘Exhib…’ and ‘1907’.

I took the medallion out of its hiding place in my underwear drawer and rubbed it between my fingers as if the gesture might call up some magic that would tell me something about my mother. Finella. Her name was the only thing I knew. Now, this afternoon, Agnes had let slip that she had been an artist.

On the bedroom wall I had hung a print of a self-portrait painted by Norah Gray in 1918. In the painting a young woman was wearing a voluminous white coat with black edging and large black buttons. In her left hand she held a corsage of black flowers. She had dark eyes and lustrous black hair and was gazing confidently into the middle distance. The image never failed to reassure me that women could be professional artists.

I looked at my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. The dark blue eyes that stared back at me still held a mutinous look and my features were screwed into a scowl. I touched the face in the mirror as if to smooth away the agitation. I put the medal back in its hiding place, pushed a wayward strand of chestnut hair behind one ear and went to make my peace with Agnes. She was at the kitchen window, staring at the garden, a droop to her shoulders that I had never seen before.

‘After all we went through together during the war - the darkness, the bombings, the shortages of everything - I only want what’s best for you, Ellie,’ Agnes said with a wistful smile.

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Chapter 2

It was a brisk walk up one of Glasgow’s short sharp hills to Renfrew Street and the familiar stone mass of the Glasgow School of Art. Although coated with industrial grime, the elegant ironwork embellished with flower-like knots and the graceful lines of the figures carved into the stonework on the lintel were clearly discernible. Usually, I was delighted to be here, but today I was unable to brush away Aunt Agnes’ insistence that I give up the ‘ridiculous idea’ of studying in London.

‘What’s wrong with Glasgow?’ Agnes had demanded. ‘Surely it’s good enough for you?’

Of course, it was ‘good enough’. But I could not pass up the chance to study in London, and the pleasure of spending time with fellow sculptors without Aunt Agnes always waiting at home to smother me in affection.

I opened the front door and was making my way towards the staircase that led to the carving and modelling studios when fellow tutor Lily rushed up, pink-faced and breathless. Her words - ‘I’ve been accepted into the Bouvier School of Art in New York. I’m to leave in two weeks’ time’ - left me speechless.

‘Well?’ Lily demanded. ‘Aren’t you excited for me? It’s what I’ve been dreaming of ever since the war ended. If you’re going to London, why shouldn’t I see more of the world too, now that restrictions on international travel have been lifted?’

‘That’s wonderful,’ I stammered, tears welling up, tears I must not let Lily see. ‘I need to go to the cloakroom. I’ll see you upstairs.’

I turned and hurried along the corridor, sensing Lily’s eyes boring into my back, her disappointed ‘Oh well then’ ringing in my ears.

Sitting in a cubicle I let my tears of envy fall. After a few minutes I splashed cold water over my eyes, dried them on a handkerchief and went to seek out my friend in the composition room on the second floor.

‘I am pleased for you Lily, truly I am. It’s just that Aunt Agnes is quite against me going to London. She wants me to marry Blair McDonald.’

‘Do you want to marry him?’

I shook my head vigorously.

‘Sounds like you have a more serious problem than just London.’ Lily looked thoughtful. ‘Seems like you have to decide on the kind of life you really want.’

‘Easy to say…’ I raised my hands in a gesture of defeat and left the studio. Walking through the school’s museum, past the displays of classical statuary heavy with the weight of traditions reaching back to antiquity, did not inspire me with confidence for the future I was seeking.

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The students in the afternoon woodcarving class were sluggish and unwilling to apply themselves to their tasks. It was a relief when the bell rang, signalling the end of the working day. I joined the stream of people leaving the building, stopping on the front steps to buy the evening edition from a paperboy. When I boarded the tram, the only empty seat was next to a large lady with a bulky shopping bag and a small unhappy- looking boy on her lap.

‘Ooh my feet. Good to be getting out of the city dearie, ain’t it?’

she said in my direction. ‘How about you?’

The last thing I wanted was conversation. ‘I’ve had a long day,’ I replied. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I just sit and read.’ Opening the newspaper, I buried my head in its pages, intent on ignoring the child’s loud wail.

‘Hmph,’ the woman snorted and turned to comfort the boy.

I attempted to concentrate on the day’s news, but the sweeping social changes brought in by Prime Minister Attlee (although a National Health Service was an excellent initiative), the price of fuel and the difficulties of finding a decent lamb chop did not interest me one bit. On the international stage Britain’s waning influence and the beginnings of the Cold War seemed far away from Glasgow. The reports of high society at theatre and ballet were equally boring. It wasn’t until I reached the Arts Section, and a by-line for an article about an exhibition of British sculpture in London, that I began to pay attention.

Accompanying the text was a photograph of a sinuous female form in wood and stone by Barbara Hepworth. The sculpture was surrounded by a tree-lined garden. I inspected the image closely, fascinated by the apertures in the work that both opened up and framed the landscape at the same time. In relating the human figure to its environment, Hepworth was, according to the article, at the forefront of British contemporary sculpture.

Sculpture in the landscape… an image surged forward of my ten- year-old self creating shelters for small creatures out of moss and twigs in our garden. Sometimes I added tiny dolls dressed in leaves and would sit for hours imagining golden lives for them in far-off lands. I tore out the article and tucked it into my handbag.

‘I don’t need New York,’ I muttered to myself, thinking of Lily. ‘London would be more than good enough for me - will be.’

My fellow passenger leant towards me. ‘Finished with the newspaper, love? Mind if I have a look?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied, handing it over. ‘I don’t want it back. I have what I want.’

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With Lily’s happy face before my eyes, and the originality of Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture filling my mind, I was loath to confront my aunt’s unrelenting opposition straightaway. As the tram slowed to stop near our local kirk, I got out. I hadn’t visited my father’s grave for several years, a guilty thought as I opened the gate and walked to the cemetery. I picked dead leaves from Aidan’s headstone before sinking down on a nearby wooden bench. Closing my eyes, I tried to visualise my father as a loving parent but all I saw was a stern expression accompanied by a harsh angry voice.

Agnes had a photo of Aidan, handsome in his officer’s uniform, taken during his years as a doctor in World War I. I wished I had a photo of my mother so I could picture them together. They must have been happy, at least in the beginning. Once again, I had a strange feeling of being displaced, of being from somewhere else.

If my family had always lived in this neighbourhood shouldn’t there be other Gilmartins buried here? I had searched the cemetery several times in my teenage years but always with the same frustrating result: apart from my father there were no Gilmartins. Where was my mother buried? I walked once again between the rows of headstones, bending down to peer at worn inscriptions, bumping my shin on a slab that had fallen across the grassy alleyway.

‘Ouch,’ I said aloud, rubbing the sore patch under a large hole in my stocking. ‘Bother, my last good pair.’

As I removed the dirt from my leg an involuntary shiver passed through me. Graveyards were supposed to be restful places where you could feel near those who had gone before, but not in my family. Too much remained unresolved: the shadowy mystery of mother’s death and father’s increasing psychological torment in the years before he died. Each time I asked Agnes, I received only vague answers and offers to inspect the huge Gilmartin family bible that had so many names in faded ink covering its pages it was impossible to untangle who was who. Of my mother’s family there was only absence. Eventually I had given up and immersed myself in art and study, burying deep the despair at ever finding my mother.

I ran a hand across the top of my father’s headstone, wanting to feel some affection for him. If not love, then at least respect, although his refusal to allow me to study art had made even that impossible.

At the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel, I looked up to see the vicar coming towards me.

‘Hello Ellie. I haven’t seen you here in quite a while.’

‘No…’

‘You seem troubled.’

‘I’m restless. That’s all. Probably because it’s spring.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you now Ellie?’

‘Twenty-three. Why?’

‘Perhaps it’s time to spread your wings a little and…’

‘Aye right,’ I interrupted. ‘Try telling that to Aunt Agnes! She’s very good to me but I’m beginning to feel as if I’m suffocating.’

I explained about the chance to study in London and Blair’s proposal. ‘I turned him down. I want to be a professional artist. My sculptures are competent, but I want to go to London to see what my art might become. Aunt Agnes is against it. If only I had the courage to break free.’

‘I see, yes,’ the vicar said. ‘I wish you the best of luck.’ He grasped my hand. ‘I’ve known you since you were a small child and watched you grow up to be a credit to your aunt. Yet it couldn’t have been easy when your father became so difficult. If you need someone to talk to you know where to find me.’

The church bell struck six o’clock and although the day was still light with the brightness of approaching summer, the air was chill. I pulled my coat tightly around me and set out for home.

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Instead of disapproval on my aunt’s face at such a late arrival, Agnes appeared flustered and barely gave me time to hang up my coat before imparting my news.

‘Mr Dunsmore wants to speak to you. He said it’s urgent and to ring as soon as you arrived home.’ Agnes looked at me closely. ‘Where have you been? Look at you, leaves in your hair and your face all red.’

Without answering I went to the black handset on the wall near the kitchen and dialled the headmaster’s number.

‘I’ll come straight to