A Country Affair

by Rebecca Shaw

They both went to the farmhouse door intending to say they were leaving. It was open and Scott put one foot inside and called out, “It’s done. All quiet and peaceful. She’s out of her misery. We’re going now, all right?”

  But Blossom would have none of it. “Come in, even if it’s only for a moment. Phil’s having a whiskey. Would you have one too? In the circumstances, you know. Please!” They couldn’t ignore the pleading tone in her voice.

  Scott glanced at Kate and she nodded. After all, at least the whiskey might be wholesome if nothing else was. She supposed that not even Blossom could do damage to whiskey. So they went in and found sparkling crystal glasses awaiting them on the cluttered, dirty kitchen table.

  “Only a small for me; I’m driving. Same for Kate; she’s not used to it.”

  Blossom handed them their glasses and, picking up her own, toasted Phil. He was slumped in his favorite chair by the fire, lost in gloom, his balaclava askew, his handkerchief pressed to it.

  “Twelve years I’ve had Christabel. Twelve years. Never a mite of trouble she’s been. Eight calves she’s had. Eight. Mother of Sunny Boy, yer know, and for that alone she’s special. I won’t tell him tonight; best not till morning. It’ll only upset him, yer know.” Sorrowfully he shook his head.

  Choked by the depth of Phil’s sorrow, Scott muttered, “Quite right.” He braced himself and found words of comfort. “She’s had a good life, though, Phil. There’s nothing on your conscience where she’s concerned, is there, Mrs. Parsons?”

  She shook her head in reply. “Treated like royalty she’s been.”

  What she’d said reminded Kate of little Scott. “Where’s Scott? I’d like to see her.”

  “Scott? Oh, the kitten. On our bed, I expect.” She went to the bottom of the stairs and shrieked, “Scott! Scott!” In a moment little Scott came running down the stairs, a bundle of energy and well grown for her age. She wrapped herself around Kate’s legs, then Scott’s and then jumped up on Phil’s knee. She arched her back and flirted her tail, inviting him to stroke her. Phil nuzzled her with his forehead. “Christabel’s gone, old love. Did you know?”

  The three of them stood in silence, watching him. Scott broke it by suggesting it was time they were off. “Thanks for the whiskey. Sorry and all that. Take care.”

  Kate swallowed the last of her whiskey and said, “Good night, Mr. Parsons, Mrs. Parsons.”

  “Good night and thanks.” This from Blossom because Phil was too full of grief to reply.

  Before Scott unlocked the Land Rover, he stood Kate against the driver’s door and kissed her. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. They kissed a few more times and then stood holding each other close. “Scott, I was almost crying in there. It won’t do for a vet, will it?”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be one.”

  “Of course you must. You handled yourself brilliantly. Is it the first time you’ve put an animal down?”

  Kate nodded.

  “It won’t be the last, you know. It’s all part of the job. You never do it unless it’s completely necessary, the one and only course of action. It’s never pleasant, but it has to be done.”

  “I know, but Mr. Parsons was . . .”

  Inexplicably, Scott was suddenly pulled away from her, and almost hit the ground but managed to save himself.

  “Who the hell!” Scott turned and found he was being gripped by . . . Oh God! No! It was Adam, wild with temper.

  “She’s my girl! My girl, do you hear! I could kill you!” Adam grabbed Scott by the neck of his jacket and tried to whirl him away down the lane, but he had not bargained for Scott’s superior strength.

  Scott slid out of his jacket and made a stand. Taking hold of the front of Adam’s anorak with both hands, he hauled him to a halt. Face-to-face, Scott snarled, “What the blazes do you bloody well think you’re doing? Eh?” Eh?” Scott shook him viciously, making Adam drop the jacket in his desperate effort to stop his attack.

  Kate shouted, “Stop it! Stop it!” trying to put an end to Scott’s violent shaking. But Scott wouldn’t stop. He shook Adam till his head was rocking backward and forward like a rag doll’s, his breath pushing in and out of his lungs with great grunts.

  “We’ve had enough of you, do you hear? Stalking Kate. It’s to stop. Now. Now, I say!” Scott released him. The two of them paused for a moment, both breathing heavily.

  Kate went to stand between them and, summoning up some of the power she’d felt when Mr. Parsons had gone to the practice with his billhook, shouted, “Please, Adam. There’s to be no more of it. Just go home.”

  “Home?” His Adam’s apple leaped up and down in his throat with his agitation. “Home? There’s nothing for me there. Nothing at all. If you’d just agree to marry, everything would be right.”

  Peering at him, Kate could see the desperation in his demeanor. “But I can’t marry you. I can’t love you; I said so.”

  Adam jerked his head at Scott. “There was love between us before he came. I know there was.”

  “No, Adam, not really, we were mistaken.”

  “I wasn’t. I loved you.”

  “I was mistaken, then.”

  Scott intervened. “It still doesn’t excuse stalking Kate. Have you any idea how frightened you made her? Dogging her footsteps every day. Following her like you’ve done tonight.”

  “I needed to know what she was doing. I couldn’t allow you to . . . I wanted to watch what you were up to. I wouldn’t have harmed her.”

  “She didn’t know that, did she? Have you nothing better to do?”

  This silenced Adam.

  Sensing his agony at the idea of speaking aloud the dreaded words, but realizing he’d be all the better for admitting it, Kate quietly said, “I’m sorry you’ve lost your job.”

  Having the words spoken out loud in front of his adversary was the final humiliation for Adam. Just between the two of them he could have confessed his predicament but not in front of the damnable Aussie. He brought back his fist and pushed it with all his meager might into Scott’s face. But Scott was too quick for him and dodged the blow. It spent itself against the Land Rover and made Adam hop with pain. He hugged his hand to his chest and achieved an appearance of such ridiculous helplessness that Kate was more upset by it than she wanted to admit. He looked so defeated that she went to put her hand on his arm in sympathy, but he brushed it off.

  The pain of his hand and the heaped-up despair of the last few weeks mounted up and he spat out, “Glad, are you? Satisfied? Yes, I have to confess I have lost my job. Not only did I not get my promotion, but I also got the sack. Imagine. All my hours of dedication and wham!” By mistake, blinded by his suffering, he banged his injured hand on to the door of the Land Rover again and suffered even more pain. “Oh God! That hurt! I was chucked out! Not even time to say good-bye. They kindly forwarded my belongings!”

  “I’m so sorry. Your mother, how has she taken it?”

  Adam looked at her with burning, angry eyes. “I haven’t told her yet.”

  “But . . .”

  “I know! I go out every day ready for work and . . .”

  “Oh, Adam. Tell her. That’s what mothers are for.”

  “Not this mother.”

  Scott decided to put an end to all the sympathy. After all, Adam had made her life a misery and here she was, after Adam had attacked him, feeling sorry for him. Pugnaciously he said, “Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get home. Do I take it there won’t be any more following of Kate, then?”

  Kate would have preferred a more kindly approach from Scott. “Scott!”

  “Well, Adam, do I have your word for it?”

  Adam ignored Scott and looked at Kate, taking in her lovely face and the sympathy in her eyes and wished—oh, how he wished—he’d behaved better than he had. He swallowed hard, knowing she’d see that pathetic Adam’s apple of his bobbing up and bobbing down. What he felt was a sense of total outrage that someone whom he considered
his property was in a closer relationship than he had ever been and with a man who surpassed him in almost every aspect of his life. His looks, his charisma, his appeal, his qualifications, his . . . “There’ll be no more following of Kate.”

  Scott was determined he wouldn’t get away with it too easily and decided to finally humiliate him by treating him like a child. “Say you’re sorry, then, like a good boy.”

  “I am sorry, Kate. I should never have done it. I was just so . . .”

  “I know. It must have been terrible. But tell your mother. You can’t keep this deception up forever, you know.”

  He shrugged. “Mothers don’t have to know everything. I’m going to get another job before I tell her. The money’s running out anyway.”

  “That’s it. You show her. I reckon she’s not nearly so frail as she makes out, you know. Stand tall. Move out.” Kate smiled up at him. “Move on.”

  Adam gave her the nicest of smiles. “You could be right, but she’ll go mad.”

  “Let her. It’s your life.”

  He rattled about in his pocket for his car keys. “I won’t say good-bye, Kate; I’ll let you know what happens.” Adam set off down the lane toward his parked car. Kate and Scott looked after him in silence.

  Scott put his arm around her shoulders. “Well, well.”

  “Poor Adam. What a night! What with Christabel and him . . .”

  “At least that’s the end of his following you. I really do think he meant what he said. Don’t you?”

  “Oh yes. Adam’s always straightforward.”

  “I don’t think sneaking about following you around is straightforward.”

  “Well, he wasn’t in his right mind then, was he?”

  “Where’s my jacket? Ruined, I’ve no doubt.” He bent down to pick it up. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained for a few days and the jacket was dry. He dusted it off and put it back on again.

  They both felt deflated by the evening’s events and all Kate wanted to do was go home and eat. Without Scott. Just with Mia and Dad, and to tell them her news. “Take me home. Please.”

  “Get in.”

  AS it turned out, Gerry was at one of his model railway meetings, so there was only Mia at home. “Scott not coming in, then?”

  “No. Only me. I’m ready to eat.

  “Two minutes.” Mia looked at Kate and, seeing the stress in her face, opened her arms wide and folded her in them. “There! There! What’s happened? You look upset.”

  Kate drew away from her. “As we were leaving Applegate Farm, Adam appeared.”

  “Adam!”

  “Adam. He went for Scott and they had a kind of minifight.”

  “Oh, Kate!”

  She told Mia word for word what had happened, ending her story with “I’m so glad it’s all over.”

  “So am I. Thank God for that. Here, sit down and eat, you’ll feel all the better for it. I don’t think I could have taken much more, never mind you. And you say his mother still doesn’t know.”

  Kate nodded. “I think he’s going to get another job and then tell her what happened. I felt ever so sorry for him.”

  “Well, you would.” Mia patted her hand. “That’s just like you.” Mia got halfway out of her chair to reach across the table to kiss Kate. “Too kind by half.”

  They smiled at each other and Kate continued eating in silence with Mia watching every mouthful. When she’d finished, Kate put down her dessert spoon, drank the last of her tea and said, “Mia.”

  “Yes.”

  “I never say how much I appreciate all you do for me. You’re not my mum, but you are, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a pleasure. I loved you the moment I saw you.”

  “When did you first see me?”

  Mia drew her cup of tea out of the way and rested her forearms on the table. “You were six months old when I moved in next door. A year old when your dad and I married.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean really, really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your dad should be here.”

  “Tell me all the same.”

  “You’re right. It would only upset him and you’ve a right to know at your age.”

  “He’s never told me, you know, not what really happened.”

  “First, did you know your mum and dad weren’t married?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Mia nodded. “It’s true. Where they met I’ve no idea, but when I moved in next door, he was on his own with you. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “For some reason I am. I’ve got to know. Things are kind of moving on with Scott and I feel I need to have things straightened out before . . . before I take any steps.”

  “Moving on with Scott?”

  “Kind of. I think.”

  “Well, he’s a lovely young man and if he suits you . . . Here goes, then. Your mother had walked out when you were two weeks old and left your dad to get on as best he could.”

  Kate gasped with surprise. “I thought she’d died. I always thought she’d died. You mean somewhere I have a mother? A real mother?”

  Mia felt stabbed through the heart by Kate’s excitement and wished she’d never agreed to tell. It was too hard for her to take; she should have waited for Gerry. “Yes. But she’s never been in touch since. He told me he’d tried every avenue he could think of to find her, but he never did. Before I knew where I was, I was helping him to care for you. I’d just left a savage marriage and the sight of you so beautiful and innocent, so bright and happy and kind of gurgly, gave me back my faith in the world. Just touching you helped to heal my wounds.”

  Mia stopped speaking and gazed into the distance, obviously enjoying once more the happiness the baby Kate had brought her. She sighed briefly and went on with her story. “I’d only been here about two months when my pig of a husband was killed instantly in a car accident. I didn’t think immediately: oh, well, that releases me from my bondage. Relief, yes, but not any thoughts of being free to get married again. I’d had enough of that. Your dad and I bumbled along for a few months looking after each other, like people do. I had you to myself when he was at work and the whole arrangement worked out very well. One thing I loved was taking you out in the pram, because people thought you were mine and I wished you were. We were bathing you ready for bed one night when Gerry said, ‘Why don’t we?’ Why don’t we what? I thought. ‘Get married,’ he said.”

  “Oh, Mia, not the most poetic of proposals.”

  They were holding hands by now and Mia squeezed Kate’s and laughed. “No, it wasn’t and I point-blank refused. Poor Gerry, he didn’t know where to look or what to do. We didn’t love each other, you see; we only came together because of you. He never mentioned it again, but he was less forthcoming, more abrupt in his manner. Then one day, clear as light, I saw that if I didn’t marry him, I’d lose you.”

  “Did you propose to him, then?”

  Mia nodded. “I did. We acknowledged that we didn’t love each other, but we agreed we liked each other and that for now we’d make do with that. He said he couldn’t live with me because it wouldn’t be decent for his daughter to be brought up in circumstances like that and I agreed it wouldn’t. So we married.”

  “All because of me?”

  “It suited us both, don’t forget. He needed someone and so did I, and we both needed you.”

  “You seem to love him now.”

  “That all happened after we married. It’s not the most romantic marriage in the world, but we rub along very, very nicely together and I’ve no regrets.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s much much better than nothing and I’ve got you.” Mia hesitated. “Haven’t I?”

  “You know you have. For always. It’s you who brought me up. You are my mother as far as I am concerned. But my biological mother, you never knew her?”

  Mia’s h
eart sank like a stone and she looked away. “No. Your dad told me it wasn’t part of your mother’s life plan to be tied down to a baby and the routine it entails. How she ever came to be involved with him I don’t know. I don’t think she was his kind of person.”

  “Has he any photographs of her?”

  “I don’t know; I never asked. She had a career, you see. We mustn’t blame her, must we, because we don’t really know her circumstances, do we?”

  Kate didn’t answer her question and then, out of the blue, asked, “How do you know if you love someone enough to marry them and follow them to the ends of the earth?”

  “If you’re asking that, then you’re not in love.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re thinking about Scott?”

  Kate nodded. She poured herself another cup of tea, but it tasted cold and she pushed it away. “One day, I know for sure, he’ll be going back to Australia, because sometimes he talks about it with such longing. Then the mood passes off and he’s Scott again, being daft and lovely and such fun. Trouble is, I doubt if a permanent relationship is in his mind right now. But he’s so lovely to be with and he claims he’s fallen in love with me. Then I remember about Bunty, and was her baby really his or not? He’d have left her with the baby, you know; he told her so. He was prepared to walk away and that worries me about him. But all the same . . .”

  “There’s one thing for certain: Adam would never have done for you. Never in this world.”

  “No. I told him to stand tall and move on. It’s his mother who’s ruining his life. She’s so domineering.”

  “Do you think he will?”

  “I hope so.” Kate pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “Must go, got chemistry to do.” As she left the room, she turned back to say, “One day I’ll ask Dad about my mother. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to you and me, but I’d still like to know about her. Mothers aren’t always the best of people to bring one up, are they?”

  Mia smiled with relief. “Not always.”

  Chapter

  13

  Scott came in at the stroke of eight o’clock and since not a single client had arrived, he leaned over the desk to kiss Kate. “There couldn’t be anything sweeter than kissing you at this time in the morning. Considering how early it is, you look stunning. How’re things? You must be feeling better after clearing the air yesterday.”