What happy times she’d had here, all those years ago; helping Uncle Jamie, watching the animals and being able to know each horse and cow by name. Happy, carefree days, until Dad died of pneumonia when she was fourteen, and there was no car and no money for her to have holidays.
Almost at the farm, where Uncle Jamie had been grieve, she turned left, to see where he and Auntie Aggie had lived, but the row of cottar houses seemed to have shrunk, too. She was bitterly disappointed. It hadn’t been a good idea, trying to recapture the past. Things were never the same when you went back. Her aunt and uncle were both gone, years ago, and she wouldn’t know any of the present farm workers - except Billy Raffan, of course.
She continued her journey along the rough road she remembered so well, at least it hadn’t changed, until she reached the haven she had subconsciously been seeking. This was where she had come in the old days when she had wanted to be alone to sit and dream. There was a sort of entrance through the trees, just a gap between them really, and she drew the car to a halt on the mossy grass verge. Walking over the springy turf, sprinkled with cones as it had always been, her heart was uplifted by the old familiar smell of firs. She soon found the cluster of tree stumps fashioning a sort of chair in the clearing, and sat down to decide her future.
Her mind refused to be harnessed for quite a long time, however, recalling the games she used to play with the other children, including Billy, who had lived two houses along from her aunt and uncle. Billy had always defended her when the others laughed at her strange city way of talking. They had run barefoot - ‘barfit’ they called it - for the whole of the school holidays, the entire length of her stay there, and she could still remember how upset she’d been when her parents came to take her back to Edinburgh. Catherine abruptly reined in her wandering thoughts. This was not why she had come here. The burning issue still had to be decided. Was it only last night that Donald Robson had given her the ultimatum?
‘I can’t allow you to carry on working after we’re married, of course,’ Donald announced.
‘But I need my work. I need the excitement of travelling, and meeting other people.’ Catherine looked earnestly at her fiance across the restaurant table.
‘If you really loved me, you wouldn’t need any other excitement.’ His tone was firm, but cold. ‘Being the wife of a professor should be enough, and we certainly won’t need the money.’
‘It’s not the money, David. I can’t see myself acting the little woman waiting for her man to come home every evening.’
‘It wouldn’t be like that. You’ll have plenty to keep you occupied - organising and entertaining - and being invited out in return. There are several other wives who would be delighted to be your friends. They have bridge mornings and …’
Catherine interrupted angrily. ‘I don’t want to twiddle my thumbs and play at being a wife, Donald. Other married woman have their own careers, and they manage to cope.’
‘They don’t have luxury holidays in New York and Paris twice a year on their own.’ His lips were compressed in a thin line now. His eyes were icy.
‘They’re not holiday trips, and you know it,’ she said, calmly although she could feel her temper rising. ‘I go to fashion shows because I have to know the current styles if I’m to do my job properly. You are being totally unreasonable.’
His handsome face softened suddenly. ‘Darling, I love you, but I really can’t have my wife working. If you think about it objectively, you’ll see that I’m not being unreasonable.’
Biting back a hasty retort, she sat back in her seat to study him. His brown eyes were begging her to give in, his dark wavy hair was just that little bit ruffled, one of the things she loved about him. She knew that, in spite of his position, he was insecure, that he needed her backing to give him confidence in himself. She’d been bolstering his ego every since she first met him at a party, two years ago. There had been instant attraction between them, but she had been the one to invite him to a concert when her girlfriend let her down. She had been the one to suggest that they made it a weekly arrangement. She had found it really difficult to convince Donald that she loved him. She sighed now. ‘I’ll think it over.’
‘Catherine.’ His voice had softened. ‘You will have to decide one way or the other. Your career or … me. You can’t have both.’
Irritation with him was setting in, but she held herself in check. ‘I said I’ll think it over.’
‘I want to know as soon as possible, Catherine.’ His tone was icy. ‘We can’t go on like this any longer.’
She took a deep breath. ‘We were stocktaking all last week, so I’m due a day off. I’ll take it tomorrow, and I’ll go to a little place I know where I can think this out properly, with no distractions.’
‘If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have to think,’ he muttered.
‘I do love you, Donald, but I had to sacrifice quite a lot to be where I am today, and it seems ridiculous to throw it all away now. Maybe I’ll see things in perspective once I’m away from Edinburgh, though I can’t promise what my answer will be. I do promise to think it over really carefully, and I’ll phone you in the evening.’
Slowly, with the silence around her being broken only by the occasional chirping of a bird, she came to the conclusion that Donald had been right. She couldn’t love him as deeply as she had thought, otherwise she’d have given up her career willingly and been proud to spend the rest of her life looking after him. Giving in to him; was that more like it?
Her decision made, her heart wasn’t broken at the prospect of never seeing him again. It was Donald who would have to face up to being on his own. Her heart was much lighter as she made her way back to the road, and she was pleasantly surprised to see Billy Raffan sitting on the grass beside her car, his bicycle propped against a tree.
He jumped up when he saw her. ‘I thought this was where you’d be, and I knew I was right when I saw the car. My mother sent me to invite you to have some dinner with us - though I suppose you call it lunch nowadays?’
‘I still call it dinner,’ she grinned, recalling many arguments with Donald Robson about her sticking so stubbornly to her own vocabulary, lower middle class he called it, ‘and it’s very thoughtful of her. I hope you haven’t been waiting here long.’
‘Not long.’ His smile was still as boyish as it had always been. ‘I allowed you an hour to do your thinking in peace and quiet. I hope that was enough?’
‘Yes, I’ve done all the thinking I need.’
‘Right then, follow me.’ He lifted his bicycle and set it upright.
‘Don’t you still live in the same house?’
‘No.’ His laugh was teasing. ‘Just follow me.’
They passed the cottar houses, passed Gowanbank Farm, up the hill and down the other side, and then he turned left along the narrow track leading to the church.
When he stopped outside the manse, Catherine came out of her car and said, accusingly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you worked here?’
‘You never asked.’
‘What do you do? Gardener?’
‘Gardener, odd job man, whatever.’
His twinkling eyes made her suddenly suspicious. ‘You’re not a gardener at all, are you?’
He burst out laughing. ‘You’d never have expected me to be a minister, would you, Katie?’
‘You’re the minister?’ she gasped. ‘No, I’d never have dreamt of that. You were one of the liveliest, funniest boys amongst the whole lot, Billy.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t call you Billy now, though. It would be disrespectful.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Mother still calls me Billy, and half my congregation. And I’ll keep calling you Katie, even if you’re probably known as Catherine now.’
She nodded her agreement to that. ‘But I feel Katie here.’
‘Good. Come on then, Mum’s waiting.�
�
‘Mind and put your bike in the shed, Billy,’ was Mrs Raffan’s first remark, ‘and bring in some coal.’
‘She orders me about like a skivvy,’ he laughed, joking, but went out to do as he’d been told.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ the small white-haired woman went on. ‘I didna believe Billy when he said he’d seen you. You were only a bairn when you were last at Gowanbank.’
‘I was only fourteen,’ Catherine said, pulling a face as she added, ‘twenty years ago. I’ll be thirty-four in a couple of weeks.’
‘Still just a bairn. You’d been surprised to ken Billy was a minister now?’
‘I could hardly believe it. He was always the wild one, the one playing tricks on everybody else. I thought he’d have gone in for farm work, like his dad.’ She hoped that Billy’s mother wouldn’t think she was belittling him.
‘He was never keen on that. He aye said he wanted to be a minister, from the time he was about fifteen. He was real clever, and got through the Divinity degree with no bother. His first charge was in Ayrshire.’
The woman smiled sadly. ‘I was pleased his father lived to see him ordained, for he died just a month after.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Catherine had liked Will Raffan, a big, bluff man, with reddish hair like his son.
‘Aye.’ Mrs Raffan was silent for a moment, then said brightly, ‘Billy had been in his first kirk five year when old Mr McIntyre died. You’ll mind on him, Katie? He’d been minister here for near forty year.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember him bellowing out his sermons when I was a kid. I was absolutely terrified of him.’
‘But he was a good man, for a’ that, a kind man, obliging. He went out of his way to do things for his parishioners, and the kirk session didna fancy the idea of a stranger coming upsetting a’body. The upshot was, they sent two men to hear my Billy preaching and they liked him, but they asked him up here so the congregation could judge for theirselves. And he got the call to this kirk.’
‘That must have been a very proud day for you.’
‘It was that, and I was even prouder when Billy asked me asked me to come and keep house for him. I’d been stopping with my sister since my man died and I’d to get out o’ the cottar house.’
‘She keeps me in order as well as the house.’ Billy had come in with the filled coal scuttle.
Mrs Raffan laughed with delight. ‘You need it, lad. Go and wash your hands afore your dinner.’
He made a face but disappeared again, and his mother turned to Catherine. ‘I’d have been fine pleased if he’d taken a wife,’ she confided, ‘but he never seemed to bother much with the lassies.’
‘As long as he’s got you, he’ll be well looked after.’
‘But he’ll no aye have me, and I’d like to see him settled. You ken, Katie, I used to think he’d a soft spot for you, when you used to come here for your holidays.’
Catherine’s face flushed. She’d had quite a soft spot for Billy Raffan when she was fourteen, but circumstances had nipped that in the bud. She hadn’t even given him a thought over the years.
‘Right, Mum,’ the minister said, when he came back. ‘I’m sure Katie’s hungry by this time.’
‘I was waiting for you afore I dished up. If you want to wash your hands as well, lass, the bathroom’s through there, second door on your left.’ Mrs Raffan stood up, and Catherine obediently followed the pointing finger.
While she ran the water, she studied herself critically in the mirror. Most of her hair had escaped from its elegant chignon; her face was practically free of make-up now although her cheeks were quite rosy from her spell in the bracing country air. This was not Catherine Walker, head buyer, this was Katie, who could never be a professor’s wife; nor a minister’s, came the unbidden thought. Drying her hands, she took out the remainder of her hairpins, letting her long hair fall in waves to her shoulders. She looked much younger when she returned to the kitchen, and couldn’t help noticing that Billy’s eyes had lit up in admiration.
Mrs Raffan was laying steaming plates on the table. ‘Sit doon, lass. I hope you dinna mind eating in the kitchen?’
‘Oh, no.’ Catherine’s eyes went round the old-fashioned room, and lingered happily on the huge range where a fire was crackling merrily. ‘It brings back memories of my Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Aggie, and it’s so nice and cosy.’
The elderly woman didn’t talk much during the meal, smiling at the two animated faces as her son and Catherine reminisced about the escapades they had shared in their childhood, but when the conversation tailed off, she took her chance. ‘Are you married, Katie?’
‘No, I’m not.’ She paused, then decided to tell the whole story. ‘At first, when I was working my way up, I went out with a few boys, but I never had serious feelings about any of them.’
‘Same as Billy,’ remarked his mother.
‘Then, when I finally made it, and got my present position, I was too engrossed in my work to bother … until I met Donald.’ Aware that Billy had lowered his eyes, she hurried on, ‘We’ve been engaged for a year and he wants us to get married.’
‘And you’re not sure about it?’ the woman asked, kindly.
‘I thought I was,’ Catherine said, frankly, ‘but he told me last night he expected me to give up my job. He said it was either my career or him. That’s what I came here to decide.’
Billy leaned forward when she fell silent. ‘When you came out of the wood, you said you’d done your thinking?’
Her nod came slowly. ‘Yes, I’ve decided to break it off with him. I don’t want to marry him if it means giving up all I’ve worked for over the years.’
Mrs Raffan laid her hand over Catherine’s. ‘If you’d come all the way up here to think about it, you couldna have loved him enough.’
There was great relief in Catherine’s smile. ‘That’s the conclusion I came to, as well.’
‘You’ll find somebody else, lass, somebody you’ll not think twice about giving up your job for.’ The elderly woman sat back and looked meaningfully at her son. Catherine caught Billy’s eye, and her heart missed a beat at the unconcealed hope she saw there. Her hand went up automatically to brush back a curl that had fallen over her eyes, a gesture she remembered from the past, a gesture she hadn’t made for some time because her hair had been in the same severe style since she’d been promoted eight years ago.
Billy had also remembered. ‘You used to do that when you were a kid. Now you’re really Katie again - the sweet-faced, toffee-nosed kid who spoke with a tattie in her mouth.’
She joined in the laughter. ‘You punched the other boys for saying things like that about me. Fancy you remembering.’
‘He’s still the same old Billy, as you can see,’ his mother said fondly, ‘still full o’ fun. He can mind near everything about everybody, and his congregation love him for it.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ he mumbled, sheepishly, his face scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Katie doesn’t want to hear about me.’
But Katie did. This new, old Katie, who had just discovered that she would love to be the wife of a minister - if she were asked.
***
Word count 3280
Written in May 1987 and refused by People’s Friend.
Duplicity
Chapter One
Having just carried their last case in from the car, Brian Lewis whipped round angrily when the doorbell rang. ‘Who the devil can that be? Can’t they at least give us a chance to settle in before they start poking their noses in?’
‘I’ll go.’ Roselle stepped carefully over the luggage scattered haphazardly over the hall carpet and inched the door open. She hadn’t given a thought to who might be on the doorstep. In fact, she hadn’t really been capable of any rational thinking for some time.
The middle-aged woman sm
iled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, lass, but I thought you’d be glad of a wee something to keep the wolf from the door.’ She took a vacuum flask from the basket over her arm. ‘I know you’ve rented the house furnished and won’t know where to find anything, so I took what I thought you’d need. Let me come in, and you and your husband can sit down. The two of you look absolutely whacked.’
She walked into the lounge as if accustomed to having her orders obeyed, smiling at the man, who seemed somewhat suspicious. ‘I live next door and I like to be a good neighbour, so put your feet up. I’ll just pour out and you can have a wee rest and I’ll take the babies with me so you can get on with your unpacking.’ She stopped speaking, probably to regain her breath, and soon had the small coffee table set neatly with two china mugs, two small jars - one with tea and one with milk - a plate of sandwiches and another with biscuits and an assortment of dainty little cakes, all of which were clearly home-made.
Having poured the tea, she stated firmly, ‘Now, get on with it. I’ll take the wee pets and give you peace to get things organised. And you’ve likely been too anxious to get here to stop and feed them, so give me what it is they get and I’ll do the needful.’
With Brian seemingly struck dumb by this chattering avalanche, Roselle had to make an effort. ‘It’s very kind of you, Mrs … um …’
‘Milne.’
‘We’re really grateful to you, Mrs Milne, for all this, but we can’t expect you to look after the twins as well.’
‘No arguments, I’m looking forward to it.’ Waiting until the younger woman had handed her a shoulder bag that obviously held the necessities for the babies, she raised her eyebrows at Brian. ‘If you’d be as good as carry one of the little cots, I’ll take the other one.’
For a moment, it was as if he would refuse, but he got to his feet reluctantly and lifted both cots. ‘Lead the way, Mrs Milne.’
He returned in less than five minutes and plonked down wearily on one of the well-worn armchairs. ‘Nosey old bitch!’
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