‘Then do it. It’ll be his last time.’
They took him. First one, then the other pushed the wheelchair down Derby Street and through the town centre till they reached the cenotaph. He sat quietly, medals pinned to his chest, sunken eyes glued to the statues. ‘We can’t stand here forever,’ whispered Judith after a while. ‘I’ll just nip across to the library and look at the languages section.’ She turned and fled towards the civic buildings, leaving Kate to stand between her father and the passing shoppers.
‘Rachel?’ The voice cracked through parched lips.
‘It’s Kate.’
‘Oh. Should have been a lad.’
‘I know.’
‘Where’s Judith?’
‘In the library looking for a Russian book.’
He sighed, sputum rattling in his chest. ‘God, it hurts.’
‘There’s no need. You could have the medicine.’
‘No. The pain reminds me that I’m alive. The pain’s all I have left now. Is that our Katherine?’
‘Yes, it’s me. You should be home in your bed.’
‘We called a gun after you. All the lads put names in a hat and Katherine came out. A big cannon, it was. Mad Katie, they called her. She was an angry gun. Like you. Angry.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say to this stranger who had occupied her whole life.
He looked up at her, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘It’s time, lass. Just thee and me and my time’s come. Use it, Katherine. That cleverness. Use it.’
‘I will.’
‘Like we used Mad Katie.’
‘More constructively, I hope. Do you want to go home now? We can pass the library and collect Judith.’
‘I am home.’ He stared briefly at the words on the monument, shivered, then dropped his head.
Instantly, Kate fell to her knees. ‘Dad?’ She touched his shoulder and he slid sideways, hanging like a doll over the side of the wheelchair. With an agility that belied her state of mind, she jumped up and straightened her father’s body, closing his eyes with the pads of her thumbs.
For an interminable and very shaky half-hour, she stood with the corpse and waited for her sister. At last Judith arrived, a large volume clutched to her chest. ‘Right. Let’s get him home, shall we?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘What? Don’t be silly, he’s just asleep.’
‘He came out here to die and that’s what he’s done. Hold him steady while I push.’
Judith stood, mouth agape, precious book still folded in her arms.
‘He died while you were in the library,’ said Kate softly. ‘The least you can do is help me to get him home.’
‘But . . . but . . .’
‘Are you practising to be a goldfish? Pull yourself together, Judith Murray.’ Although she herself felt far from ‘together’, one of them needed to display a bit of commonsense.
‘Shouldn’t we tell somebody? We can’t take a dead man through the streets without telling somebody.’
‘Why not? He’s been dead for weeks anyway, only hung on till you came home. This is how he wanted it. We take him back, put him in bed and say he died there. He is not to be taken to any hospital – you know how he feels about hospitals.’
They stared at one another. ‘You’re not crying,’ said Judith at last.
‘Neither are you. Do you think Mam will cry?’
‘Yes. She’ll cry because she wasn’t with him. He gave her one hell of a life, Kate.’
‘I know.’ They began to push their burden which seemed heavier now in its inert state. ‘He always made Mam feel so guilty,’ Kate continued. ‘Me too for being a girl. He messed up my mind, Judith. But, oh God, I’m sorry he’s dead. He was waiting for us, expecting us to do great things, waiting for grandsons.’
Judith took over the pushing. ‘Everything seems so unimportant now. Russian, Swedish, German, all I’ve worked for. When you see a life snuffed out like this . . . What’s it all about, Kate?’
‘Strangely enough, it’s about staying alive. So stick to your books and your plans. It’s what he would have wanted.’
‘And you?’
‘What about me?’
‘He expected a lot from you, Kate. He thought you’d end up running the country or something like that. Are you going to carry on with that silly marriage?’
Kate pushed her sister to one side. ‘I don’t know. Let me take the chair for a while. I’ll do what I have to do. When the time comes. I just wish . . .’
‘What?’
‘That I could trust and love somebody for a while.’
Judith glanced down at the dead man. ‘He took a lot away from you, Kate.’
‘Yes, well, he probably couldn’t help it. Now, let’s get home and explain all this to Mam. We’ll have to make all the arrangements for her. Strange how she always stood by him in life. Now he’s dead, she’ll probably be absolutely useless.’
But Rachel proved far from useless. Once she recovered from the initial and very brutal shock, she set to with funeral arrangements and insurance policies, bought herself a nice navy-blue suit – ‘it’ll be more useful than black’ – and shoo-ed her daughters out of the house as soon as her husband was buried.
‘But, Mam!’ protested Kate. ‘You’ll be on your own for the first time ever!’
‘Then I’d best get used to it, eh?’
Judith was busy with her packing, but even she looked astonished when she understood her mother’s intention. ‘Let Kate stay a while. I can’t, unfortunately. I’ve to see my professor before I set off for Russia. Don’t be on your own, not just yet.’
‘Stop talking as if I’m ill!’ Rachel pushed a damp curl from her forehead, then carried on cleaning the grate. ‘I shall manage. In fact, I’ve plenty of thinking to do and you two only get in the road.’
‘What’s there to think about?’ asked Kate.
‘Me job for a start. I’ve a widow’s pension now, plus a few bob a week from some policy of your dad’s. If I’m not careful, I shall lose me pension in tax. So happen I’ll do a bit of cleaning, cash in hand. Or get a job that doesn’t pay enough for me to be penalized. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Years he struggled on with his bad leg and never a penny for all that pain from the war. Then there’s the war widows, treated like muck, they are. Their husbands went out and died for England, but what do the women get? Nowt. A fistful of pennies every week, that’s all. So if you ever have lads and they start on about defending Queen and country, tell them to hang on a bit, ’cos it’s not worth it.’
Kate and Judith stared at one another. This was the longest speech their mother had ever made within their hearing. ‘So you’ll give up the mill?’ asked Judith.
‘I will that, and never a backward glance. I’ve got you two through now, and that’s what it was about. Do you think I’d have stuck all them years without a darned good reason? No. I’ve finished with spinning.’
‘There was no need. He earned enough . . .’
‘Shut up, Katherine!’ Rachel’s face glowed in the light from the fire. ‘I know what he was. There’s no need for you to be telling me what he was and him hardly cold in the grave. If he hadn’t gambled, if he hadn’t been a drinker. Yes, he was a weak man. Your father was a hurt man, and don’t you ever forget that.’
‘He never let any of us forget it, did he?’
Rachel rose from the floor and slapped the cleaning cloth on to the table. ‘He’s dead, lass. There’s no need for revenge now. You can’t hurt him past dead, can you?’
‘I never set out to hurt anyone!’
‘Aye, but you never forgave him for his mistakes, did you? He wasn’t lovable, I know that. But he was a human being, our Katie, a human being with feelings the same as the rest of us. He loved you and Judith in his way.’
‘In his way.’ There was a steely edge to Kate’s voice. ‘And I loved him in my way, the way he showed me. So don’t blame me for my dad’s failure.’
‘I’m not blamin
g you. I’m just asking you to accept the way he was. Accept it and get on with your lives, both of you. I’m going to get on with mine, and it’ll be easier without two grown women under me feet all day. You’d best get back to your job, Katherine, or they’ll be finding somebody else. And our Judith has to finish her education. I’ll be all right. I don’t need anybody with me.’
‘Are you sure? Shall we have a phone put in?’ It occurred to Kate that this would be the first time ever that Rachel had been truly alone. As a child she had been surrounded by brothers and sisters; even during the war she had had company. ‘A phone would be useful.’
‘I’m not having one of them things! Jessie Turnbull’s daughter had one put in for her, and she keeps it in a cupboard so she can’t hear it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she feels right daft talking to somebody who’s not there. Embarrassed, like. Mind, she always was three sheets in the wind, was Jessie Turnbull. Did I tell you she’s got a new dog? Fierce, it is. It’ll let anybody in the house, but it won’t let them out. It took five men to get him from the Wesleyan and General through the back door last week. Still, he should be well-insured being as he’s the insurance man. Now. Where did I put me brass polish? I’ll just give that plaque another once-over . . .’
Judith and Kate stared at their mother. She was different, voluble, amusing. Although saddened by her husband’s death, she seemed to be breaking free from some invisible bond that had held her shackled for many years. ‘She doesn’t need us,’ said Kate to her sister. Her mother apparently had all she needed for now. And the chief ingredient seemed to be freedom.
Kate’s own freedom was confined to school. At home, Dora was well dug in by this time; in fact, she seemed to resent Kate’s going back to Crompton Way after her father’s death. ‘You should have stayed with your mother, dear. We can manage here perfectly well.’ Yes, Dora had all she wanted. Her son, a lovely home and a baby to care for.
Little Melanie’s relationship with her mother was a difficult one. As a toddler, she began to discover that she needed only to run to Dora or Geoff and her own way could be had instantly. But Kate was not so easy, not so malleable. Kate did not believe in giving in to children, but in the face of the other two adults in the house, there was little she could do to prevent the spoiling of her daughter. In the end, she took what she later realized to be the easy route, the lazy way out. Dora brought up Melanie while Kate went to work. At the weekends, she tried to instil some discipline into the child, but all her good work was ruined by Monday morning when Dora took over.
Kate tackled her mother-in-law just once. ‘There are too many tantrums,’ she said. ‘Melanie is growing up believing she’ll get her own way just by screaming. You give in to her too easily.’
Dora bridled. ‘She’s just a baby. How can it be possible to spoil a baby? It’s only a few sweets . . .’
‘And she’ll have no teeth left.’
‘Milk teeth!’ snapped Dora. ‘You’ve only to worry when the second lot comes.’
‘That’s not true. The longer she keeps her milk teeth, the better her others will be.’
Dora slammed the bag of sweets on to the table. ‘I see. So you know more about bringing up children than I do, eh?’
‘She’s my child!’
‘And I’m the one who looks after her while you go out all day!’
Kate marched to the table and slammed down her bag next to the packet of sweets. ‘That can soon be altered, Dora. If you object to coming, I’ll get a nanny in . . .’
‘No need.’ The woman’s expression was suddenly frantic. ‘Nannies are too expensive. And anyway, Geoffrey likes to see me every day. He wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘No. No, I’m sure he wouldn’t. And I won’t hear of my child being ruined to the point where I can’t handle her. She thinks she’s only to run to Granny and everything will be just the way she wants it. I don’t like spoiled brats, Dora.’
‘I see.’ The arms were folded beneath the pendulous bosom. ‘I never spoiled Geoffrey. I brought him up on my own after my poor husband died. There’s nothing spoiled about him, is there? Well? Is there?’
Kate stared at the woman and knew that it was pointless. If she came out with all of it, if she stood her ground and said all that needed saying, then she would destroy what little peace there was. Geoff was a spoiled brat and would continue so for the rest of his life. But what would be the virtue in telling this woman, ‘you did it all wrong’? Anyway, who the hell ever got it all right, this child-rearing business? Was Kate doing a good job, had Rachel done her best, was any mother perfect? So she simply sighed and said, ‘No. He’s not spoiled. But please stop giving in to Melanie. I don’t like her so petulant.’ To ease the pain she added, in a kinder tone, ‘And thanks for the date scones, Geoff will enjoy one of those later.’
With a heavy heart, Kate left her daughter in hands that were deemed capable and went off to the bedroom. There was an unreal quality to her life here, as if it were temporary, as if she knew that she would not be staying. At times, she felt like a guest in her own home, because that was how Dora made her feel. The best hours were spent at school where, in spite of the fact that she disliked the system and most teachers, she could at least make a contribution she knew to be valuable. The self-starters had begun to read, and among them Kate had found little teachers, children who re-learned while educating others. Thus, in a way other teachers might have derided, Kate had a smooth-running class full of good learners and potential successes. If she could just have her own school. If she could just escape a system apparently comprised of the deliberately blinded led by the totally inept.
Melanie tottered in followed closely by Dora. ‘Mummy doing?’ asked the child.
‘Mummy’s thinking,’ said Dora gently. ‘Mummy’s got all her work to do for school, then she has to change for when Daddy gets home. Come along now . . .’
‘Leave her,’ said Kate quietly. ‘Let her stay here for a while.’
‘Oh but it’s time for her supper.’ Dora’s tone remained sweet as she led the infant away towards the stairs. ‘Granny’s mashed you a lovely banana for afters. Come on, leave Mummy to get on.’
The door closed.
Kate leaned forward and stared at herself in the dressing table mirror. Who am I? she seemed to be asking herself. I’m not a wife, I’m hardly a mother. Who then? What then? A teacher? Is that all I’m going to be, a teacher in circumstances that almost make me puke? Partridge and Gibbons, am I like them? Surely not. What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?
She tore off her clothes, pulled on a robe and went into the bathroom. Where were the roses round the door? Where were her brushes and paints, easels and charcoal? Her hands turned taps and sprinkled salts into water as she studied the long tapering fingers. These hands used to have talent, these hands were once going to change the world.
What had happened to all that ambition? Had it disappeared with Mike, did she need a man to prop her up, give her a sense of direction? She sank gratefully into the hot tub, remembering her old idea of heaven. No, it hadn’t really changed, had it? Not basically. In the slipper baths, Kate had felt alone. Perhaps her idea of heaven all along had been aloneness. Did she love Geoff? Or Melanie? Was she capable of loving anyone – even herself?
But oh Lord! A teacher? Forever? No!
5
At twenty-six years of age, Kate Saunders was approaching her best. Although she had always been thin, there was at last a little flesh on her bones, a fine layer of firm texture that covered the sharp angles of her face and lent them some softness. Her body, too, was rounder with maturity and her hair had settled into a soft billowing mass of red-blonde waves that framed her features perfectly.
She would never be a real beauty – she knew that well enough – but she attracted attention as she shopped in town, drew male glances and the odd wolf-whistle which improved her self-image no end. And it needed improving too. Geoff treated her as if she were an
old habit, something he could pick up or discard as the mood took him. His frequent visits abroad gave him the opportunity to indulge his need for other women; it was as if he required a whole harem to support an ego that was receding along with his hairline.
Dora continued in frequent attendance even though Melanie was now at infant school, and life had taken on the sort of humdrum normality that was supposed to soothe. It did not soothe Kate, though. She found herself longing for things she couldn’t even name, intangible things that were probably connected with a freedom she did not dare to steal. If she left Geoff, she would be universally condemned, and she had not yet reached the stage of maturity – or would it be desperation? – that might lead her to dissolve her lifeless marriage.
School became the only place where she felt real and required. In her class, there were several children of great promise, infants whose parents, like her own mother, had slaved for years in factories just to give their offspring ‘a decent start’. Kate’s progress in Class One did not go unnoticed, and when Mr Partridge suffered a stroke which left him unable to teach, she was invited to apply for his position. No-one else in the school seemed to be interested in the deputy-headship, so the job was hers after an interview at which she was the sole applicant. Miss Ashe shook her hand firmly. ‘We shall do very well, you and I, Mrs Saunders. Your ideas are progressive and you will keep me on my toes.’
‘Thank you. For the chance and for having faith in me.’
‘You’re a good teacher. How do you think you’ll like the change from infants to juniors?’
Kate smiled sadly. ‘Funnily enough, I’ll miss the little ones. Strange, because I’m not very good with my own five-year-old.’
‘Typical, I’m afraid. Good teachers do not necessarily make good mothers. My own life has been childless, of course, so I don’t know how I would have coped with motherhood.’
‘I don’t get the chance. My mother-in-law is there at weekends, too, now. And Geoff is talking about buying a new house in Edgeford, a house with a bit of land for his mother to have a separate flat on our property.’
Nest of Sorrows Page 10
