by Rue Allyn
“You never look like an ordinary bloke, Mister,” Roy observed with a sniff.
“We can put the wheelchair out of sight, can’t we?” Michael asked.
“Why can’t he see the wheelchair?” Bob wanted to know.
“He wants more respect,” Roy explained, toying with Katie’s abandoned lunch on the table.
“Yes, Roy, I do. A little more from you might not go amiss, either. Jessop, find my RAF jacket. I think it’s hanging in the hall.”
Mrs. Jessop hurried into action, grasping the handles of the wheelchair and pushing Michael toward the door. “We’ll get it on the way,” she said, conspiratorially.
Safely ensconced in the study behind his rosewood desk, Michael arranged a few pieces of paperwork artistically in front of him. He nodded to show the man in.
The man who appeared in the doorway was tall and dark. Not as tall as he, Michael observed with a certain amount of satisfaction, and not as slender either. This man was broad-shouldered, built like a coal-heaver, with a rough-hewn look about him. But then, a lot of women liked that kind of thing, Michael thought ruefully. Katie had liked that kind of thing, once.
“Private O’Brien? Forgive me if I don’t stand to greet you. I’m recovering from an injury, you understand.”
“A war wound, sir?” O’Brien’s eyes flickered with interest.
The impertinent fellow had an open face, with bright blue eyes. Dark brows above them, well-defined brow ridges — a strong, masculine countenance. Obviously Celtic.
“That’s right. A dogfight. Didn’t go so well for me. I bailed and came down on somebody’s roof. Bit of a bumpy landing.”
Michael often found the only way he could talk about what had been one of the worst events in his life was to play it down with a joke.
“Sounds like a real adventure, sir. A story to tell your grandchildren.” O’Brien gave a melodic Irish laugh and seemed genuinely impressed.
“Yes, yes, great fun.” Michael tried to put the same twinkle into his own eyes although the mention of the grandchildren he was never likely to have was a little close to the bone. “Please, sit down.”
O’Brien pulled up a chair. He was one of those men who couldn’t sit neatly; he was all long, loose limbs and huge, hulking shoulders. Michael struggled to ignore mental images of Katie with this man — dancing with him, kissing him, and the rest. He tried to fight the images invading his mind: Katie in this man’s powerful arms, her naked body against his. Oh God. Michael swallowed hard and forced himself to concentrate on the conversation at hand.
“How can I help you?” he said, and the words came out like bullets. Inwardly, Michael cursed, because he’d wanted to speak with that laconic air of disinterest people of his standing liked to use.
“Well, sir, it’s Kathleen I’ve come to see. She works here, I understand?”
Michael had no idea her name was Kathleen; he’d assumed it was Catherine.
“My family is very friendly with hers back in Ireland,” O’Brien added.
“Really? That’s not the impression Katie has given me.”
That was the first remark that seemed to unsettle O’Brien at all. He frowned, and his dark brows drew close together for a moment. “Look, I don’t know what she’s told you, but Katie and I were certainly very friendly for quite a while. And I need to see her. She’s not answering my letters, you see, and I’ve got a number of things I need to ask her … ”
“If she’s not answering your letters,” Michael said, leaning forward as if explaining basics to a foolish young cadet, “one might possibly draw the conclusion that Katie would rather leave the acquaintance in the past, where it belongs.”
“She wouldn’t do that. Not if she had a free choice. You don’t know the full story. You don’t know what she’s like.”
“Actually I’ve come to know Katie reasonably well over the last few months. I’ve grown rather fond of her, in fact. And I know more about Katie’s past than you might expect.”
O’Brien blanched. He turned his dark green cap round and round in his hands, thinking what to say next. “So that’s the way of it, is it?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
O’Brien sighed sharply and got to his feet. “Have you even told her I’m here?”
“I have. She didn’t want to speak with you.” Michael felt that he had to add something to convince the man so he kept talking. “She seemed very surprised you had enlisted in the British Army.”
O’Brien’s face darkened, and Michael knew he had been right to throw in that little detail. It obviously struck a chord with the man.
“She was in love with me!” O’Brien protested. “Far more in love with me than I was with her — at that time at least. I won’t believe she’s finished with me until I’ve heard it from her own mouth.”
“People’s feelings change. Especially when they’ve been treated shabbily.”
O’Brien’s face flashed with anger. “Who are you to talk about treating people shabbily — sitting there behind your fancy desk telling me lies about my Katie? I’m leaving for the frontline soon and I need to see her. If you really know what happened between us, you’ll understand why. But perhaps you’re just bluffing. Tell her I’m on my last pass, and I must talk to her before I go. Tell her I’ve got a room at the pub in the village and I’m staying until tomorrow.”
Michael realized he was shaking with rage and hoped desperately it didn’t look like fear. The adrenalin coursed through his veins and he wanted with all his heart to jump up and grab the man by the lapels of that brand new jacket. He needed to shake some sense into him after the condition he’d left Katie in, the filthy swine. Perhaps it was just as well he was unable to get up, lest he laid the man out cold on the Axminster carpet.
Mrs. Jessop had already come to the door, startled by the sound of raised voices. She looked questioningly at Michael, waiting for his instructions.
Michael managed to gather his wits about him. “I think it is high time we terminated our discussion. Jessop, show Private O’Brien the way out, if you please.”
• • •
Katie waited in the tiny scullery with bated breath. She had sent the boys to the nursery with strict instructions not to come down until the coast was clear. She tried to finish the dishes, but she dropped a plate in her distress and watched it shatter on the floor into dozens of pieces.
Tom. Wanting to see her. Tom. In the British Army.
She dropped to her knees and started picking up the broken pieces. Her fingers were wet and soapy and in her distress, Katie was clumsy. She picked up several jagged pieces before she realized she’d cut her finger. Her heart had been aching so much, she hadn’t even noticed the pain. She shuddered, feeling the sharp sting of the cut now, and wrapped her finger tightly in her apron, not wanting to see the blood. Katie struggled to dispel images of her own blood on the blanket that night in the station. The night she gave birth to Tom’s baby.
Then she heard Michael’s voice.
“Katie?”
She stifled a sob. “I’m in here. Has he gone?”
“Yes. Come out here, Katie. I can’t possibly get this bloody thing in there.”
She emerged, and he gestured her to sit on one of the kitchen chairs.
“Do you want me to tell you what he said?” Michael asked.
“Yes. Tell me everything.”
• • •
She only had to ask at the post office, they would know where he was staying. There were only the two places anyway — the hotel by the golf course or the Dog and Whistle. Katie’s money was on the hotel, as Tom had always been a bit of a snob, but it turned out he was at the Dog and Whistle.
She wished she could have walked in there anonymously, but there was no escaping the fact that the whole village was about to know her business. It would, undoubtedly, get back to Michael.
The bartender directed her to the snug, where Tom was having a jar. He looked different in uniform. It suited him. That khaki gre
en color went well with his dark hair. He rose to his feet when he saw her and set his beer on the mantelpiece.
“Katie! Thank heavens you’ve come. I’m leaving on the first train to London tomorrow.”
His blue eyes twinkled like the Irish Sea, and he bent to give her a kiss. Just a chaste peck on the cheek, but she caught a whiff of the beer he’d been drinking, and his six o’clock shadow grazed her face. He was the sort of man who needed to shave twice a day to stay really smooth.
“Tom.” She could not inject much warmth into her greeting, but the emotion rose high when she asked the next question. “What on earth possessed you to volunteer?”
“Better than staying at home, missing all the fun.”
“Fun?” Katie said, spitting the word like a curse.
“A chance to travel, see the world.”
“You have hated the British all your life, and now you are going to fight in their war for them? For fun? For a chance to see a hole in the ground and your blood and guts spilled just before you fall into it?”
“That’s no way to speak to a man who wasn’t afraid to stand up and shoulder a gun.”
“What about running your father’s business, making changes like you told me in your letter. Have you left your mother to cope with all that?”
“She’s got Dervla.”
“Your sister is ten years old, Tom!”
“I needed to spread my wings,” he said. As if he were a restless angel.
She sighed, and changed the subject. “Why are you here?”
“To see my heart’s own darling,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye and a bit of a grin playing about his lips.
“Don’t, Tom,” she said. “I know you well enough now not to fall for it.”
His face suddenly became serious, as he obviously thought to try a different tack. “We need to talk, Kathleen.”
Katie knew the reason. “You want to hear about the child.”
“A man likes to know, when his life’s in danger, if he’s got a son or a daughter to leave behind.”
“You left that chance behind a long time ago.”
“I’m only asking if it was a boy or a girl, Katie.”
She reeled away from him. Her own little girl. Tiny little hands and feet. Her hair, in damp curls, stuck to her tiny fragile head.
“I can’t talk about it, not even to you.”
“Hey, Katie, love. You’ve gone as white as a sheet,” he said. “Sit down and I’ll get you a drink.”
Hastily, anxiously, he made a place for her by the fire, and she let him push her down onto the seat. There was real concern on his face, and her attitude toward him softened. He checked the change in the pocket of his new khaki trousers before heading to the bar. Katie watched him go, shambling along in his army boots, and she felt sick at heart. He leaned forward on the bar, his large frame looking out of place.
He looks like a brute, thought Katie, so different from Michael in almost every way. A handsome brute though.
Tom returned with a gin and tonic, the drink he used to buy for her back in their hometown. Mother’s ruin, Katie thought immediately. It’s what you were supposed to drink if you didn’t want the baby.
But she had wanted her baby, desperately. If only Tom had faced up to his responsibilities and asked her to marry him, she could have given birth in Ireland, kept her little baby and watched her grow.
Tom’s fingers touched hers as he passed her the drink.
“I think I made a stupid mistake letting you go, Katie.
“I think you did, too.”
“We need to discuss things properly. I’ve got a room upstairs.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going up there with you.”
“Finish your drink. Then we’ll talk.”
• • •
Michael rolled into the kitchen where Roy was sitting alone at the kitchen table, struggling with his homework. It was unusually quiet and tranquil, apart from the occasional epithet from Roy’s lips as he frowned his way through a long list of words to learn for a spelling test tomorrow.
“Where is everyone?”
“The little kids are in bed, and Alfie’s just gone up, too, with one of your old comic books. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not that much,” said Michael.
He had a look over Roy’s shoulder. The boy’s method of committing words to memory was to write them out, over and over again in the back of his rough book with a heavy, inky hand.
“Where’s Katie? She usually helps you with that, doesn’t she?”
“Dunno. Sorry.” The answer was meant to sound nonchalant, but it immediately rang alarm bells for Michael, who knew the sound of a cover-up when he heard one.
“Her hat and coat are not on the hook,” Michael observed. “Roy? Where’s Katie?”
Roy looked up and gave a sigh. “Gone out.”
“At this time of night? On her own?”
“Well, I don’t think she’ll be on her own for long, mister. She went to the Dog and Whistle.”
“She’s gone to see O’Brien?”
Roy gave up the pretense and shut his book. “You should go after her, Mister Lord. Don’t let that paddy fella get her.”
Michael stared at the boy. A great, ugly looking fellow he was going to be with his shaggy dark curls and his chubby face. It would be easy to believe Roy had some gypsy blood in him. “If only it was as easy as that.”
“Well, just wait then. He’ll be stopping bullets before long, won’t he? Maybe one of us will get her in the end.”
It always came as a shock to Michael when Roy said something that clearly indicated that he saw himself as a rival for Katie’s affections.
“Don’t pass judgments on things you don’t understand, young man.”
“I understand you’ll let her slip through your fingers unless someone puts a grenade underneath you. Do you want me to take you down there so you can get her back?”
“What?”
“You’ve got petrol in the car,” said Roy. “I could wheel you out there, stick you in the car, and we could be down at the Dog and Whistle in no time.”
Michael was silent for a moment, thinking fast. The idea rather appealed to him. “Can you drive a car, Roy?”
“I drove a van once in London. I drove it fast too, coz it was nicked.”
Michael felt a flare of surprise, but then accepted this tidbit philosophically. He should have known with Roy. “There won’t be much traffic on the roads, so I suppose we could risk it.”
“Grab your hat and scarf then, Mister, and we’ll get going. At least she’ll see that you mean business.”
• • •
Katie knew she shouldn’t have agreed to go upstairs with Tom. But how could she tell him about their little girl when it seemed the whole village had turned out downstairs — boozy old men telling jokes and wheezy stories, laborers throwing darts and spilling beer on the floor, village busybodies listening in.
Tom’s room was much too small for a big, loose-limbed chap like him. It was an attic room, with a low sloping ceiling, and a little gabled window. Katie felt safer in front of it, looking across the green and through the trees to a nice view of the river beyond. It would be getting dark soon.
She turned back and glanced awkwardly at Tom, who seemed lost for words, too.
Tom sat down on the bed and patted the space beside him.
“I’m all right where I am,” she said stiffly.
So Tom joined her at the window, stooping to look out over the village green.
“Lovely place,” he observed. “I shall think about you here in this peaceful place while I’m in the war. Will you write me?”
She didn’t want to say yes, but wasn’t sure she ought to say no, either. What harm would a few letters do?
Except that she hated receiving his letters, full of mixed messages and references to broken promises. Instead, she skirted his question.
“Where will they send you?” she asked.
“How would I know? I suppose it won’t be Greece now. I’d rather have liked a look at Greece.”
Katie smiled. That was the Tom she had known in Ireland. Full of mad schemes to see the world and enjoy himself at somebody else’s expense.
He was right behind her now. He put his hands on her shoulders and she didn’t stop him. He was an old friend, and perhaps he did have a prior right. Seeing him made her realize how out of place she was here in this English village and even more so at Farrenden Manor with Michael. Who was she trying to fool? Herself?
She could feel Tom’s body close to hers, though she would not turn around to embrace him. She could feel him leaning closer, his warm breath on the side of her face, and she sensed the very moment when he decided to lower his lips onto the curve of her neck.
• • •
The red sports car drew up right outside the Dog and Whistle.
“I’ll go inside and find her,” Roy said as he jumped out and dashed into the pub. Michael had no choice but to wait in the passenger seat, since they had left the wheelchair at home.
Roy was gone for about ten minutes, while Michael waited impatiently wishing like hell he had not entrusted any part of this mission to a surly, twelve-year-old boy. He should never have allowed Roy to interfere in his troubled romance with Katie, if that’s what it was. Michael glanced uneasily at the pub, with its jolly hanging baskets of flowers and its shabby thatched roof. The old gray straw was shedding in places, making the place look like it needed a trip to the barber. Michael sighed. Could he, with any degree of legitimacy, say that he was romantically involved with Katie? His feelings had run high when he met that O’Brien fellow, that’s for sure.
He must be. Romantically involved, that was.
Roy came hurrying out of the pub alone and Michael frowned as he leaned over the door to hear the news.
Roy’s face was grave. “She’s gone upstairs with him, Mister.”
Michael swallowed hard and glanced away. “Dear God.”
“Shall I ask the landlord to go upstairs and tell her you’re out here waiting? Or do you want to try to get in there yourself?”
Michael stared at the walnut dashboard, as if the answer should be written there for him. “I can’t face people laughing at me. And I don’t want that Tom fellow to know I can’t walk.”
