He pulled her to a halt. ‘Oh, aye?’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Do you expect me to believe he was lying beside you and didn’t touch you?’
‘He didn’t do anything to me. Oh, George, please believe me. He was like a little boy, and he didn’t have the sense to know he shouldn’t be there.’
‘And you didn’t stop him?’
‘I tried to, but he was terrified and I just couldn’t make him go back to his own room.’
‘Likely you didn’t want to. Maybe you’d been waiting for him. Maybe you’d been ready for him.’
‘George Buchan! That’s a horrible thing to say!’
‘It’s horrible to think the girl I loved let a daftie take her. What would you think if I told you I’d been with a girl down in Yarmouth?’
‘Oh … you weren’t, were you?’
Again, he couldn’t bring himself to deny it. ‘I just said what would you say if I had.’
They kept standing, both rigid with anger, then he said, ‘That’s it, Katie. We’re finished.’
‘George! I’ve told you the truth!’
‘It’s too much for me to swallow, and I’m not marrying a girl that’s not pure.’
After waiting a moment for her to assure him that she was pure, he turned from her in disgust. ‘I knew it. You did let him take you, and I couldn’t bear to touch you now.’
As she watched him walking away, she reflected sadly that she had told him the truth as far as it went, but Sammy had eventually taken her, though it had been Dennis McKay who defiled her first.
She walked straight past her grandmother without speaking when she went in, and the tears did not come until she was in bed.
In the morning, Katie did not satisfy her grandmother’s obvious curiosity, and when the old woman asked, ‘Did you and him fall out last night?’ she didn’t answer.
‘All right, then,’ Mary Ann said, unfeelingly, ‘keep it bottled up.’
Katie was glad that no one referred to her blotched face in the shop, for she couldn’t have laughed it off, and the day dragged on for so long that by mid-afternoon she felt like running out and leaving all the customers standing. It was with great relief that she locked up at six o’clock.
After half an hour of toying with a plate of stewed liver and vegetables – unable to confide in her grandmother, she avoided her inquisitive eyes – she had a longing to be by herself. As she walked along the shore, she wondered if the Three Kings were offended that she had not talked to them for such a long time, and decided to chance telling them what had happened, though they likely knew, for the quarrel had taken place not far from them.
‘George doesn’t want to marry me now,’ she gulped, as she stood looking at the rocks, ‘and he’d be worse shocked if he knew the whole truth. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him about the thunderstorm, but he’d have found out I wasn’t a virgin once we were husband and wife. I wish I could have my time over again, knowing the things I know now. I’d have more sense than give in to Dennis, and if Sammy hadn’t seen us making love, he’d never …’
Katie broke off. She had ignored Sammy for far too long, and for all she knew his mind could be back to what it used to be. He would think she had forsaken him.
She addressed her special friends again. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you. If you make George change his mind about me, I’ll go to see Sammy, and if he’s better, I’ll take him home with me. Once George sees him, surely to goodness he’ll believe I was telling the truth about that night.’
Going home, she doubted if George would understand, and remembering Sammy’s jealousy of Dennis, she wondered if she would be storing up trouble in bringing them together? But she was duty-bound to do what she could for the poor soft thing, whatever the cost. Although her heart felt as if it was being riven asunder, Katie kept her tears at bay until she was in bed and spent another night weeping.
George was cursing himself. He shouldn’t have finished with Katie last night, for he still loved her, and he’d surely get over his sickness at what she had told him. If only she’d been honest with him and admitted letting that Sammy make love to her, it wouldn’t be so bad, for if he did marry her he’d know beforehand he wasn’t the first with her. She wasn’t the first for him, either, not by a long chalk, though Lizann was the only one who ever meant anything to him. In any case, it was different for a man.
When he went into the baker’s shop the following morning, he was dismayed to see that Katie’s eyes were puffed and red-rimmed. It gave him no pleasure to have wounded her so badly, and he wanted to make it up to her. She kept her eyes steadfastly on the customers she was serving, but she had to look at him when his turn came. ‘Half a dozen bread rolls, please,’ he said loudly, then leaned across the counter and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Katie lass, I lost my head. Say you forgive me?’
‘Nothing’s changed,’ she muttered.
‘I know, and I don’t care. Do you want to see me again?’
Taking his money, she gave a nod and he grabbed her hand for a moment. ‘I’ll come for you at the usual time, and I swear everything’ll be all right.’
He went cautiously when they were walking over the golf course later. He had to gain her trust again. ‘I was plain jealous,’ he said, when they sat down behind a bunker. ‘I hated thinking another man …’
‘You know something, George?’ she asked softly. ‘I went to the Three Kings last night and I promised them I’d go to see Sammy if they made you come back to me, and you have, so I’m going to Ladysbridge on Sunday.’
His stomach lurched. ‘Oh, Katie, I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘I made a bargain.’
‘With three damned rocks?’
‘They’re not just rocks to me, and I’m going to take him home with me if he’s fit to come.’
‘What are you trying to do to me, Katie? You know what I feel about you and him, so why … ?’
‘Listen George. I love you, but if you can’t take Sammy along with me, I won’t marry you.’
‘Katie, you can’t expect me to …’ He couldn’t believe she could be so insensitive.
‘It’ll maybe not come to that,’ she said, sadly.
‘You’re damned right it’ll not come to that!’
She remained sitting long after he had stamped off, her eyes dry because she knew she had only herself to blame this time. What she had suggested would have been too much for any man to take, she should have known that.
When she went home, Mary Ann said, ‘Have you been fighting wi’ him again?’
The tears came now. ‘I told him about Sammy.’
‘The laddie Gunn? You didna tell George about that?’
‘I didn’t tell him everything, just about Sammy coming in my bed at Fenty and George thought we’d …’
‘Aye, men are aye ready to believe the worst, for it’s what they’d do themselves. I’d a lad once, Katie, afore I met your grandfather …’ She broke off looking flustered, then shook her head. ‘I’m saying no more, but believe me, Katie, it’s stupid to tell the man you love about somebody that doesna mean a thing to you. If George ever comes back to you, dinna tell him what else the laddie Gunn did to you, for that would finish the two o’ you good and proper.’
‘We’re finished good and proper now,’ Katie’s sigh ended in another sob.
On learning why, Mary Ann burst out, ‘You’re nae going to Ladysbridge on Sunday. Tell George the morrow you’re sorry. Tell him you love him, and say you’ll never think about the laddie Gunn again. See if that patches things.’
‘I thought you wouldn’t want me to patch things? You said I shouldn’t trust him.’
‘Maybe I was wrong about him, and I’d rather see you back together than put up wi’ you moping for him.’
Katie suddenly tossed her head and said defiantly, ‘I’m still going to see Sammy on Sunday. George did come back though he went away again, so I have to. I promised the Three Kings.’
Mary Ann gave a derisive snort. ‘You promis
ed three lumps o’stone sticking up in the air? And what could they do to you if you broke your promise, do you think?’
‘I’m not going to break it, Grandma. Not for you or for George or even for God Himself, if He told me to.’
Giving a shocked gasp, Mary Ann levered herself off her chair, muttering, as she hobbled into her bedroom, ‘May the Lord forgive you for taking His name in vain.’
Katie remained in her seat, thinking. Maybe she shouldn’t have told George she was going to Ladysbridge. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him about Sammy at all? But she couldn’t leave him to rot in that place for the rest of his life. She still owed him a debt of gratitude for saving her twice from his father. Thank goodness she didn’t have to worry about Mr Gunn now, for she’d more than enough worries as it was.
Rising to turn out the lamp, she wondered about the lad her grandmother had started speaking about. Something must have gone wrong between them, so was it because of him she had said men weren’t to be trusted?
Chapter Twenty-four
1930
On the bus to Ladysbridge, Katie wished that her grandmother had said more about her first lad. If he had jilted her and gone off with somebody else, it would explain why she was such a bitter woman. Her own position wasn’t as bad … there was no other girl in George’s life. He had climbed down after their first quarrel, and she shouldn’t have annoyed him again. If she had waited, she might not have needed to tell him about this visit at all. If Sammy was still the same, she would go to George straight off the bus when she went back and tell him she was sorry for going against his wishes – but maybe it was too late for apologies.
When she arrived at the institution, Sammy was not in his usual chair, and she went in search of an attendant to ask where he was. The white-coated man gave her a peculiar look. ‘I’d better take you to Mr Welsh.’
Mr Welsh, who turned out to be the superintendent and was a middle-aged man with thick glasses and a genial, round face, told her to sit down. ‘You are Miss Mair?’
Katie was puzzled. ‘Yes?’
‘Did you not receive the letter I sent some time ago?’
Alarm gripped her. ‘No, I didn’t get any letter.’
‘It was sent to your address in Peterhead … oh, it must be about a year ago. I can look up the date if you like.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a lot longer than a year since I left Peterhead … not long after Sammy was put in here. What was wrong … was he ill?’
Mr Welsh cleared his throat. ‘I wrote immediately after Mr Gunn died, but …’
‘Sammy’s dead?’ Disregarding the spinning of her head, she asked, ‘Did he … was he … ?’
‘There had been no change since he came in, and he passed away peacefully in his sleep.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up abruptly. ‘Miss Mair, are you all right?’
‘It’s been a shock, I’m sorry.’ Her teeth were chattering and the man’s face was blurring.
She knew no more until she came round to find him holding her head down on her knees. ‘I’ll get someone to bring you some tea.’ Mr Welsh pressed a bell on his desk.
Her face was so colourless, her eyes so anguished, that he said he would have someone drive her home when she came to herself, but, unwilling to face her grandmother so soon, she said she would prefer to go to Banff – adding untruthfully that she had relatives there.
She could see that the young driver was apprehensive when she told him to drop her off anywhere on the seafront. ‘I’m not going to jump in,’ she assured him as she got out of the van. ‘I just want to clear my head before I see my auntie.’
After walking along to the harbour, she stood looking at the ‘BF’ registered trawlers – and two marked ‘BCK’ – and let her thoughts turn at last to what she had steadfastly tried to forget for the past twenty minutes. It was awful to think that poor Sammy had died in that horrible place with no friend beside him, even if the superintendent had said he had passed away in his sleep. She should have gone to see him more often. What would it have mattered if he didn’t know her? He might have recognized her eventually … if she had gone regularly.
As she stood, ignoring the piercing wind, heedless of the chill seeping right into her bones, she recalled the years they had shared: the fear-filled days after leaving Fenty; the carefree months at Struieburn; the three see-saw years in Peterhead when contentment alternated with sadness, and happiness with despair.
‘Oh, Sammy,’ she sighed, mournfully, ‘if I hadn’t made you run away with me, you’d still be alive.’
She jumped when someone tapped her shoulder, and looked round into the anxious eyes of an elderly fisherman. ‘Are you all right, lass?’ he asked. ‘You’ve been standing there for near half an hour.’
‘I’m all right,’ she assured him. ‘Somebody I … cared for died over a year ago, and I didn’t know till I went to … the hospital this morning.’
The man did not appear to find it strange that she had taken so long to visit someone she professed to care for and nodded sympathetically. ‘That would upset you, right enough. You look frozen, lass, will you let me buy you a cup o’ tea? I was on my road to get one for myself, and I’d be pleased to have somebody to speak to.’
Katie accepted gratefully, and as they walked along, he told her that his name was Donald Shewan and he was on the drifter Deveron Lad. ‘We were to sail at twelve,’ he went on, ‘my last trip, but it was eleven afore the cook sent word he’d broke his arm, and the skipper hasna got another cook yet.’
Unable yet to contribute anything to the conversation, she was glad to listen to his thumbnail sketches of the other five members of the crew of the Deveron Lad, and they were finishing a third cup of tea when he said, ‘Will somebody nae be expecting you hame, lass?’
Glancing at the clock on the wall for the first time, she gasped. It was almost five o’clock. ‘Do you know when I’ll get a bus to Cullen, Mr Shewan?’
‘Ach,’ he laughed, ‘that’s my Sunday name. Naebody would ken who you wanted if you asked for Mr Shewan, for I’m ken’t far and wide as Dosh. I’ve nae idea when you’ll get a bus, lass, but I’ll ask Babbie.’
He went to the counter, and was back in a few seconds. ‘Ten past, she says, so we’d best get going.’
After paying for the teas, he walked with her to the main road, and when her bus appeared, she held out her hand. ‘Thank you for the tea … Dosh, and for helping me. I feel a bit better now.’
His huge, rough hand engulfed hers. ‘My pleasure … eh, you havena tell’t me your name.’
‘Katie,’ she said, shyly. ‘Katie Mair.’
‘Will you take some advice from an old seadog, Katie? It seems to me you’re blaming yourself for nae going to see your friend afore he died, and that’s no good for you. Mind on him the way you ken’t him, and carry on wi’ your life. Will you do that for me, lass?’
Katie nodded tearfully, and he tipped the peak of his cap before walking away. Taking a seat, she felt deeply grateful to him; talking to him had been nearly as good as being with her grandfather again. Was it possible that he had been an angel in disguise? Had Granda sent him down from heaven to minister to her in her hour of sorrow? But whatever he was, angel or ordinary mortal, Dosh had done much to heal the cracks in her heart, the cracks opened by George and widened by the news of Sammy’s death.
Not fully recovered from either, she forgot, when she came off the bus, that she had intended to try to patch up her romance, and ran straight down the hill. Bursting into the house, she threw herself at her grandmother.
Mary Ann, unaccustomed to the role of comforter, held the sobbing girl until her shoulders stopped heaving then pushed her gently away. ‘Sit down and tell me.’
Katie thumped into a chair. ‘He’s been dead a year … and I never knew.’
Hiding the relief she felt, the old woman soothed, ‘Maybe it’s all for the best. George’ll have nothing to be jealous about now.’
‘I don’t want to see George a
gain, not after this.’
‘Look, lass, you’re all upset the now, but you’ll get ower it. Gi’e it a week or two, then go to him and …’
‘You don’t understand. I’ll never forget Sammy as long as I live, and if George ever said anything bad about him, I’d want to kill him … and what makes it worse, I wasn’t there when he died … and I wasn’t here when Granda died, and … oh, Grandma, I wish I was dead, too.’ Covering her face with her hands, she dissolved into another paroxysm of tears.
Rather at a loss, Mary Ann said, sharply, ‘Stop it, Katie! A young lassie like you, wi’ all your life in front o’ you? If you dinna want George, somebody else’ll come along, and you’ll get married and raise a …’
‘I don’t want George, and I don’t want anybody else!’
‘You dinna ken what you do want, that’s your trouble. I think you’d best go through to your bed, and try to get some sleep or you’ll not be fit for your work the morn.’
Wounded by her grandmother’s lack of compassion, Katie dragged herself into her bedroom, but as she undressed, her shaking fingers fumbled so much that she yanked her bodice open in a temper, and scowled as one button flew off and hit the china chamberpot under her bed with a resounding ping. She didn’t bother to hunt for it, and dropped each item of clothing on the floor with a fierce satisfaction.
Angus looked so tired when he came home that his wife told him to go to bed and she would take his dinner up to him. ‘Why don’t you let me help you in the shop?’ she asked when she carried up his tray. ‘For a while, anyway, till you feel up to it again.’
‘Perhaps you should,’ Angus agreed. ‘It has been getting a little too much for me lately.’
Betty had collected his dirty dishes and had started to wash up when she heard him making a funny groaning noise, and, not even bothering to dry her hands, she raced up the stairs. ‘What’s wrong?’ she gasped, when she saw that he was clutching his chest.
The Three Kings Page 27
