Nest of Sorrows

by Ruth Hamilton

  Without a word to anyone, the girl walked stiffly through the room and into the kitchen. It seemed that no-one breathed as she opened the stairway door and went upstairs. Judith received her without comment. The drama was over and she had a book to study.

  ‘You’ve lost her.’ There was a note of finality in this statement from Rachel. ‘What ground you made up, you’ve just lost. There’ll be no getting her back now. You are the biggest damn fool I ever met in my life.’

  ‘Aw, shut up. She’ll get over it.’

  ‘She won’t. And neither will you, you big soft lad. Shouldn’t you go to hospital and see if your nose is broke?’

  ‘It’s not broke.’

  Rachel began to set the table for breakfast, her mind filled by a picture of Katherine’s determined face. His nose might not be broken, but that tenuous link with his younger daughter had been severed, possibly forever. Yet they loved one another, Rachel knew that.

  After that night, no further mention was made of a house in Hawthorne Road. Peter knew that Rachel had been right. As expected, he spent his extra money on whisky and horses, coming into the house only to sleep and eat. His downslide had begun again.

  Michael Wray ran his fingers across the clear handprint on Katie’s face. ‘He did that? Your own father did that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her head was bowed in shame. ‘I couldn’t go to school today in case anybody noticed it.’

  ‘I’ll kill him.’ The boy’s tone was restrained in spite of the severity of his words. ‘Or I’ll set my father on him. He’s a sergeant now, you know. The other police think a lot of my dad, they’ll listen to him.’

  ‘No! I don’t want . . . I don’t want my dad in trouble.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Her mind said, ‘Because I love him’, but she spoke aloud, ‘Because my mother couldn’t stand the shame. He’s never been happy because I was a girl. He seems to want me to be like a boy, successful and everything. It’s with me being ugly. He knows Judith will get married and her education will be wasted. But me, I’ll be on the shelf.’

  ‘Rubbish. You’re not ugly.’ He knew his face was burning with embarrassment. ‘You’ll get married, Katie.’

  ‘Huh! Who’ll have me? I’ve got stringy hair, eyes like a cat’s, great big feet and . . .’

  ‘A very nice smile.’ He hesitated and turned away slightly. ‘Yours is the sort of face painters like. It’s got lots of angles and planes, very good bone-structure. After you’d been to tea that day, my mother remarked on your cheekbones. Very high, she said. Very elegant.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Anyway.’ He kicked a stone across the path to hide his acute discomfort. ‘I’ll marry you.’

  ‘Will you?’

  He nodded. ‘We’ll have a farm with a duckpond, lots of mallards to paint. And in a barn we can make a big studio with good lighting and hundreds of canvases. I’ll use oils and you can use water-colours. We’ll have seven children and they’ll all be artists and actors and stuff like that.’

  ‘Nice. But we’ll have to wait years.’

  ‘What will you do till then, Katie? What if he turns on you again?’

  ‘He can’t help it. At first, he didn’t love me at all. Now, I sometimes think he loves me too much.’

  ‘If he loved you, he wouldn’t hurt you.’

  ‘And if he didn’t love me, I couldn’t disappoint him and make him hurt me. You can’t understand, Mike. Nobody but me can understand about me and my dad. I’m special to him. If I let him down, it really gives him pain.’

  ‘If he hits you again, we’ll run away and hide till we’re old enough to get married and be famous artists.’

  She smiled broadly. ‘For thirteen, you don’t half talk daft.’ But the smile remained on her face all the same.

  3

  Peter Murray leaned on his walking stick and glared at his annoying daughter. She was a mess and no mistake. Blue jeans rolled up to the knees, a sleeveless striped blouse with a flyaway collar, the whole lot covered in streaks and splashes of paint. Her hair, too, was paint-spotted, that beautiful red hair that had thickened out something wonderful during the past few years. ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Didsbury? Didn’t you get an offer for Newcastle?’

  ‘I’m doing teaching,’ she said with quiet determination. ‘We’re both doing teaching so we’ll have plenty of spare time for our painting.’

  ‘Both. I see. So it’s still you and Mike Wotsisname riding off into an orange sunset, is it?’

  ‘With a touch of burnt umber, yes.’

  ‘Don’t you come the clever lip with me, lady! Your mam isn’t here to protect you now, is she? Why can’t you be like Judith? She’s doing so well at Oxford . . .’

  ‘I’m not a linguist. I’m an artist.’

  ‘I see. So you’ll be living in a garret next news, all candles and boiled spuds.’

  ‘No. We’ll do OK.’ She turned as if to leave the room, but he waved his stick at her and she stopped in her tracks, back towards him. ‘I hope you’re not threatening me, Dad.’

  He shook his head sadly. That he could love her so much, that he could fail to tell her how much. He brought the cane down on to the table, noticing how she didn’t even flinch at the crash it made. ‘Katherine! Study art at Newcastle or wherever. Study fine art – you can always teach it if you want to.’

  ‘No. Mike and I have it all planned out. I’m going to teach juniors and he’s doing seniors. We shall get married as soon as we leave college.’ The catch in her voice was caused by the need to explain to him, to tell him that she loved Mike, that she loved her father too, that there was no need for all this animosity. But things had gone too far for that. And things hadn’t been right from the start, had they?

  ‘Katherine, why do you have to throw yourself away? Judith hasn’t got a boyfriend – she lives for her studies.’

  She faced him now. ‘Good for Judith. It’s all working out wrong for you, isn’t it? You thought I’d be your nearly-son and Judith would get married and give you those male grandchildren you’re setting so much store by. Well, Judith can’t get a man. She might look like an angel, but she’s a cold fish. You spoiled her. You made her take and take until she didn’t know how to give. As for me, well, I started off as a disappointment, so I might as well carry on in the same vein. I’m not going to be a spinster just for you, just so you can say, “Look, I made a woman into a man”. And don’t wave your stick at me, I’m eighteen now and I can do as I please.’

  ‘You cheeky young bugger, you!’

  ‘And shouldn’t you be down the betting shop? They’ll be shutting the doors without your custom.’

  ‘Enough! Is it any wonder I’ve taken to the horses? With you coming in like a bloody rainbow and your mother going through one of her “silence is golden” phases? Look at you! Just look at the state of yourself! What the hell have you been up to at all?’

  ‘I’ve been painting ducks.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘I hope the park keeper never caught you.’

  ‘Pictures of ducks. Not the actual birds.’

  ‘Oh, I thought they’d happen struggled and covered you in something or other. And what’s me-lad-o been up to while you’ve been painting ducks?’

  ‘Trees. He’s been experimenting with greens.’

  ‘Very nice. I hope it stays fine for you.’

  She sucked in her cheeks, then exhaled loudly. ‘Have you finished? May I go to my room now and get ready for the dance?’

  ‘What dance is that?’

  ‘The Thornleigh and Mount leavers. They’ve booked the Palais for the fifth and sixth years.’

  ‘What about the paint? Are you going covered in that?’

  ‘No. I’m going to the slipper baths, if you’ll excuse me. I agree, I need a good scrub.’

  They looked at one another without speaking for several seconds, then she went upstairs to fetch her bath bundle. The man was impossible, he really was! And he looked so . . . so ill. No wonder, she thou
ght as she slipped towels and soap into her brown paper carrier. He drank enough for ten men, gambled away the change. Poor Mam.

  Downstairs, Peter Murray pulled on his coat and walked out of the house, leaning heavily on his stick as he made for the betting shop. With a bit of luck, he could catch a bet for tonight’s dogs, and to hell with Katherine and her cavorting. But oh God! If only he could say . . . if only he could find the words. What words? I love you? Would she believe him after all this time? Could she be made to realize that he’d loved her since the day of the rope and the lamp-post? Aye, to hell with her. Her and all bloody women.

  At the baths, Katherine paid her pennies, refused the bar of coarse soap and the rough towel that came free with the service, then locked herself gratefully into a cubicle. Although splashings and singings could be heard from adjoining baths, this was one of the few places where she could feel alone. She filled the bath as far as it would go without spilling into the overflow, poured in some salts, stripped off her disreputable clothes and sank beneath hot soothing water. It was bliss. Heaven, she had long ago decided, was a hot bath with taps, a soft towel and a jug to rinse her hair with afterwards. Simple. Life could be so simple.

  It would be simple with Mike. Mike had already left school and had done his national service in the Air Force. So now they would go to college together, get engaged, be married as soon as the last term was over, then live happily ever after in a cottage with roses round the door. In the evenings, they would paint, together and separately. One day, one of them would become famous. One day, there’d be a Wray hanging in some London gallery and all the snobs would gather to say that they simply had to have a Wray. It didn’t matter which one of them became famous – the other would stay at home to mind children and prune roses. Happy. Simple. A perfect life, a life without parents.

  She worried about Mam, though. It seemed cruel, leaving her alone with Dad the way he was. It was obvious that he’d never really forgiven life and Mam for not giving him a son. Still. There was nothing she could do about any of it, was there? And it was OK to be happy. Yes, it was OK.

  That evening found Kate standing on the corner outside the Palais de Danse. She knew she looked nice. From Auntie Vera, who was always generous with her clothes, she had borrowed a newish cotton dress in pale cream with a pattern of large gently blue cornflowers. The same aunt had lent her some dyed blue high-heeled shoes and an off-white stole full of holes, as light as a spider’s web, it was. Her burnished hair had curled properly for once, and it reached just to her shoulders, softening the startlingly clean lines of her face.

  Mike was late. It wasn’t like him to be late. A few of the lads whistled as they passed her, while one or two asked her to go in with them, but she remained where she was, faithful as always. Then he came round the corner with a girl on his arm and a fixed smile on his face. The shock sent her reeling, so that she literally fell against the building.

  ‘Kate!’ He sounded breathless. ‘This is Josianne, our Pamela’s French penfriend. My naughty little sister had other plans for tonight, so I brought poor Josianne as my guest. She has very little English.’

  ‘Allo?’ The pretty gamin face was creased by a frown. She looked gorgeous, all swathed in a red silky-satiny material with a daring halter neck. Her eyes and hair were dark, and the mouth was generous, too generous for Katherine’s liking. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘J’ai seize ans!’

  ‘Ah.’ Sixteen! She looked older than Kate did! And suddenly the cornflower dress was dowdy, just a borrowed frock with no glamour, no panache. ‘Shall we go in, then?’ Katherine’s tone was cool.

  Inside, a few Brothers and lay-teachers from the girls’ school were getting politely inebriated at the bar. Mike left the two girls together while he went for pineapple juices and a glass of beer for himself. Josianne’s eyes swept over the room with an air of contempt. ‘Il n’y a quelquechose à manager?’

  ‘I don’t speak French.’

  ‘Oh. There is not the professeur of French at your lycée?’

  ‘Yes, there is the professeur of French. I don’t like French, can’t do it.’

  ‘C’est la même chose pour moi. For me the same. I not like English, so my father is send me here.’

  Katherine ground her teeth noiselessly. Mike’s French was flawless – he spoke it like a native! But when he returned to the table, Josianne had been whisked away by the first in a long queue of potential partners.

  He sipped at the beer, his eyes following the French girl’s every move.

  ‘Well? How long is she staying?’

  ‘Till the end of the dance, I suppose. Though perhaps I should take her home early, she is only sixteen . . .’

  ‘In England. How long is she in England?’

  He shrugged, rather too carelessly for Katherine’s liking. ‘A month – six weeks – I’m not sure.’

  ‘And you’ll have to look after her because Pamela’s French is appalling.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘What a terrible chore.’

  He looked at her for what seemed like the first time since they had come into the hall. ‘Katie, are you jealous?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s just going to be such a nuisance. It will cut into our art time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She sighed. ‘Ah well. Never mind. In a few weeks, we’ll be off to Manchester. I hope there’s something to paint in Manchester.’

  He hesitated, then took another swig of Dutch courage. ‘Katie?’

  ‘It’s Kate, or Katherine. You know I don’t like Katie.’

  ‘OK. Sorry. Look, I didn’t want to tell you this tonight, but I’m not . . . I mean . . . I won’t be going to Didsbury. My parents weren’t happy in spite of the fact that the college had a decent art department. They want me to get a Catholic certificate. I’m going to De La Salle, staying with the Brothers.’

  ‘Oh.’ What else could she say? All those plans, all those years . . . ‘Oh’ somehow summed it all up, didn’t it?

  ‘We can meet some weekends.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He swallowed another mouthful of ale. ‘And we should really mix with other people. I mean, we’ve only ever been out with one another, haven’t we?’

  ‘True. But that was fine with me.’

  ‘Me too!’ he said hastily. ‘We can get together again, when college is over. It’s not the end, Katie – I mean Kate. But we may be cramping one another’s painting style. And you’re so much better than me,’ he added generously.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know I am.’

  ‘Pardon?’ His jaw dropped for a moment.

  ‘Your style is too flat and lifeless. Perhaps you will do better away from me.’

  He stared hard at her. She wasn’t talking just about painting, was she? No. The yellow lights in her eyes were flashing like some awful warning of shipwreck or earthquake. ‘Do you want to dance?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘No. I think you should go and rescue your little French girl before something interesting happens to her. After all, she’s only half dressed.’

  ‘Katie!’ But she had left him, the table and the pineapple juice before the second syllable of this unwelcome name had left his lips.

  She learned several things that night. The first was that she couldn’t depend on Mike. The second came to her after several dances; Katherine sounded too saintly and it was better to introduce herself as Kate. Kate from The Taming of the Shrew? She half-smiled as some clumsy sixth-former put her through a painful square tango. The last lesson was quite an interesting one. Although she was completely covered by the dress, it was without sleeves, and if she let the stole slip to reveal a shoulder, she got more dances than the girls in low-necked frocks. The introductory stages of sex were no longer a mystery. Men were malleable and women were clever.

  Mike didn’t get much of a look-in with his French partner. In fact, he seemed to sit out most dances. Almost every time Kate waltzed or quick-stepped by, he was nursing his beer at the same tabl
e. Hard cheese, she thought viciously. He came across at one point to where she stood with several girls from school, his face flushing deeply as he asked for a dance. She refused, pleading a sore foot, only to sweep past him seconds later in the arms of a very popular house captain.

  The last waltz loomed dangerously near. He wouldn’t get a look-in with Josianne, Kate realized that well enough. She glanced round frantically, hoping that some handsome chap would claim her before she became a midnight wallflower. Or cornflower, she mused grimly as she dropped the stole an inch more. She was not heartbroken, refused to be, surely didn’t deserve to be heartbroken? Why this great leaden lump in her throat, then?

  She swivelled on her heel and faced a blank wall, remembering, seeing in her mind’s eye, almost tasting the days that she and Mike had spent together. Eight years, nine years, how long had it been? A hairslide, a new paintbrush, a dirty hanky dipped in the pond to soothe a scraped shin.

  It had all been planned, hadn’t it? Marriage, children, painting, roses round a cottage door. She was going to cry. She must not cry! For pride’s sake, she must hold herself together until the end of this nightmarish dance. Or could she leave now? Could she cross this vast room full of sweating bodies and escape to cleaner and fresher air? Could she?

  ‘Good evening.’

  With a supreme effort of will, she pulled herself together and turned to see a man by her side, a real grown-up man, very dashing and good-looking. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘I gatecrashed.’

  ‘Thought so. How old are you?’

  ‘That’s a rude question.’

  ‘And gatecrashing’s a rude business.’

  ‘OK. Let’s just say I’ve turned thirty, shall we?’

  ‘Oh. How far over the hill are you?’

  ‘Two years. Will you dance with me?’