A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  Karen found it difficult to bring up the subject of their coming together in the closeness of the double bed; she couldn’t discuss sex. She found it impossible, his remoteness inhibiting her. Not that he left her bed, apart from that night following the Stanhope Show, but more often than not he simply turned his back when she was aching for the comfort of his love-making. Not that sex was gone altogether from their lives. Patrick was a lusty man, or had been until September. But on the few occasions when they came together in bed nowadays he seemed driven to it. It was not as it had been, thought Karen. Here it was January and things had been this way since September.

  It was 1925, she thought wearily as she broke the ice in the bucket of water in the scullery one morning. Her thoughts matched the cold white dawn, so cold her fingers had stuck to the iron handle on the back door, causing a slight freeze burn.

  At least they had heard no more from Dave so maybe he really had gone to Canada, she thought as she sucked her finger. She filled the kettle and went into the kitchen where the newly kindled fire was blazing up the chimney.

  Patrick had managed to get work on the road the council was building over the top of the moor, the snow was slight so far and the road-building went ahead as long as the weather allowed. It was hard labouring work and he needed a good breakfast before meeting the waggon which took him and the others to work.

  Karen sucked her sore finger again pensively. Patrick and Nick came in to wash their hands before breakfast. The children were still in bed. Both of them had feverish colds and needed a little extra coddling.

  ‘Beauty calved all right, a strong white heifer.’ Patrick volunteered the information as he sat down to his porridge which would be followed by bacon and eggs. He had to have a good breakfast so as to last the day, even if Karen herself made do with porridge.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said, smiling at him. She poured tea for him and Nick. ‘Maybe I’ll have time to paint that sheep rack you made later on.’

  They fell into silence as they ate breakfast. The warmth from the range was beginning to fill the room and what with the smell of the bacon there was an air of snug comfort to it, contrasting with the cold outside. Patrick glanced at the wall clock and with a reluctant sigh took a last drink of tea and put on his outdoor clothes. As he moved to the door Karen followed.

  ‘We’ll be all right now, Patrick?’ He noticed her hesitation as she looked up at him, and patted her arm.

  ‘Don’t worry so, Karen. Yes, we’ll be all right now.’

  Waving to Nick, he went out. Nick coughed, scraping his chair back as he rose.

  ‘Well, missus,’ he asked, ‘shall I clean out the pigs and byre then?’ He knew he could do the work in whatever order he liked, he was steady and could be relied upon despite his disability, but he always deferred to Karen.

  ‘Right, Nick.’

  Karen rose too. Time to check on Brian and Jennie. They were awake and peevish, Jennie sobbing as Karen went into the bedroom while Brian was looking flushed and defiant. The reason for the trouble could be seen clutched tightly to his chest. It was a precious story book he had received as a Christmas present.

  Jennie held out her arms to Karen, her lower lip trembling.

  ‘He hit me! Brian smacked me,’ she wailed.

  Karen took her in her arms. ‘Why did you do that, Brian?’ she asked over the head of her daughter.

  ‘She wrote on my book.’ Brian’s voice was accusing as he held out the book, sadly covered in scribble. He was an early reader, encouraged by his father. His most prized possessions were his books, he couldn’t get enough of them and he hated Jennie to touch them. Consequently, she always tried to get hold of one.

  ‘Still, you shouldn’t smack her, she’s smaller than you,’ Karen admonished. ‘And you, Jennie, shouldn’t write on Brian’s book.’ The guilty Jennie sobbed even louder, hiding her face in Karen’s pinafore.

  ‘Come on now, never mind, just don’t do it again. I’m sure we’ll be able to rub it off, Brian …’ Karen was interrupted by the sound of Nick shouting up the staircase.

  ‘Missus! Karen, come down a minute, will you?’

  ‘What is it, Nick?’ She tried to put Jennie down on the bed but the child clung to her tightly, renewing her sobs. ‘I can’t come down just yet,’ she called back and returned her attention to the little girl who was at last becoming quieter. Karen wiped her face with a large, soft handkerchief. Jennie’s nose was sore and inflamed and red with her cold.

  ‘It’s that man, missus. Asleep in the stable.’

  Nick’s quiet voice was yet loud in her ears. He had come upstairs and was standing close behind her, startling her before she took in the import of his words.

  ‘Nick, you made me jump!’ Her arms tightened round Jennie convulsively. ‘What man? What man do you mean?’

  Nick stood in the bedroom doorway, miserable and uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to stockinged foot for he had left his boots in the hall. ‘You know, Karen, that man.’

  She stared at him in disbelief. It couldn’t be! He couldn’t mean Dave. Brian and Jennie were quiet too. All three stared at Nick. At last Karen moved, putting down the child and standing up, automatically pushing a stray tendril of hair behind her ear.

  ‘Be good now, pets,’ she said mechanically to the children, ‘I won’t be long.’ She turned to Nick. ‘Stay in the house until I’m back, will you?’

  He nodded mutely, his eyes unhappy as she walked down the stairs and out to the stable. She could see he was longing to go with her but he wouldn’t leave the children, not when she’d asked him not to.

  Karen stood in the stable doorway staring at Dave. He was sitting on a pile of the dried brown bracken so laboriously sledded down from the fell by Patrick.

  ‘Aren’t you going to offer me some breakfast?’

  He was looking up at her confidently, the bad penny which always turned up, she thought numbly. She didn’t hear what he said, her mind too busy coping with the realization of all her nightmares of the last few months.

  The scene swayed before her. She put out a hand to the door post to steady herself. Dave stood up, brushing bits of bracken from his trousers and straightening his jacket.

  ‘Did you hear me, Karen?’ He had lost his mocking tone, his voice was sharp.

  ‘What?’ She was still staring, dazed.

  ‘I said, how about a spot of breakfast for a hungry man? Now I know you wouldn’t turn anyone away hungry, not even me.’ He walked indolently over to her.

  ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Canada?’ At last Karen trusted herself to speak.

  ‘Well now, I’m not in Canada as you can see and at the moment I’m hungry, so will you get me something to eat when I ask you to?’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘We’ll go into the house, eh? Bit nippy out here.’

  She swayed as Dave brushed past her and strode into the house, heading for the kitchen fire where he stood with his back to the heat, his feet apart, his hands in his pockets. He sniffed appreciatively at the appetizing smell of ham and eggs still hanging in the room.

  ‘By, something smells good. I reckon I’ll have some of that.’

  Karen had followed him in, her mind seething incoherently. To steady herself as much as anything she set to with the frying pan and cooked him ham and eggs. Dave sat down at the table and looked around appraisingly.

  ‘Nice and comfortable you are here, Karen,’ he remarked smugly, ignoring her lack of response.

  Nick came downstairs and stood beside her as she worked. He kept his eyes on Dave, his face twitching, the stump of his right arm moving spasmodically.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ Dave stared back at him. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got two fancy men?’ He laughed a taunting laugh, and Nick was goaded.

  He stepped forward, growling in his throat, fist doubled up.

  ‘Nick!’

  Karen put out a hand to him, holding him back. ‘It’s all right, Nick. Look, why don’t you get on with the yard work? Really, it
’s all right.’

  He looked at her doubtfully. ‘I’d better stay, missus,’ he said simply.

  ‘No, really, everything’s fine. Just get on with the work, there’s plenty to do and we want a private talk.’

  Reluctantly, and with many glances behind him, Nick went out into the yard, but reappeared at the window at intervals, peering in anxiously.

  Karen put the plate before Dave and sat down.

  ‘Righto, now tell me what it is this time,’ she said, her voice hard and flat.

  Dave picked up his knife and fork and began eating. ‘Well, it’s like this, see.’ The words sounded thick through his full mouth. ‘I had a bit of bad luck. I was going to Canada, honest, but I reckoned I could save a bit of money by making my own way to Liverpool and then maybe sign on as a deck-hand on a ship. Leave enough money for a good start, see?’ He beamed across the table at Karen, obviously expecting her to appreciate what good thinking this was. She stared back at him uncompromisingly.

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted. He looked down at his plate, his smile disappearing.

  ‘Yes, well, to cut a long story short, I fell in with some travelling folk and ended up with nowt. “Well, Dave,” I said to myself, “Karen will help you out. You can be sure of Karen.”’ His grin reappeared wolfishly as he licked his lips and folded his arms confidently and leaned back in his chair.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘We have nothing. You can see we have nothing.’

  ‘Come on now, I can’t see any such thing.’

  Dave sat forward and leaned his arms on the table. His expression became ugly and his voice softer.

  ‘I can see that there is good food on the table and sheep in the fold. I can see your fancy man has a job. Don’t you tell me you have nothing because it’s a bloody lie! And I’m telling you now, I want some of it. Or else.’

  ‘Or else what? What can you do?’ Karen’s voice rose.

  ‘I can get you into plenty of bother, my lass. I could still make a bob or two if I told it to the papers. Then what would your holier than thou father have to say? And where would the Irish feller be and all? What would happen to your bastard bairns if you had to go to gaol?’ Dave stood up triumphant, pleased with the reaction he saw in Karen’s horrified face.

  She was white and staring, fascinated as a rabbit by a stoat. She gripped the table with both hands until the knuckles gleamed white through red, chapped skin. She was bereft of speech, her mind a black, swirling mist. There was a sound behind her, a low, animal sound.

  ‘Call the loony off, Karen.’

  Dave was looking over her shoulder. For a moment she sat still, frozen into position, before his voice penetrated her confusion. She turned slowly in her chair.

  Nick was standing in the doorway with a hayfork in his hand. His face was a bright, angry red, eyes suffused with hatred as he glared at Dave. Alarm galvanized Karen into action.

  ‘No! Nick, no!’

  Karen flung herself at him and caught hold of his good arm. Earnestly she stared into his face, willing him to look at her, keeping herself between him and Dave.

  ‘It’s all right, Nick, it’s all right. Look, he hasn’t hurt me. Nick, come on now, we’ll go outside, eh?’

  She tugged at the hay fork in his hand and after an agonizing moment he looked down at her and his resistance melted and his grip slackened. The wild look left his eyes and he merely looked bewildered.

  ‘Karen?’

  ‘Yes, Nick. Howay now, we’ll go outside, get some fresh air.’

  He allowed her to lead him out to the yard and across to the stable where she propped the fork against the wall.

  ‘Come on, Nick,’ she forced herself to say briskly. ‘There’s work to be done. Will you feed the hens for me?’

  ‘But missus …’

  ‘No, really, Nick, I do want you to get on with the work and I’ll have to get back to the bairns. You’ll do it for me then?’

  He looked doubtfully at her and back to the scullery door.

  ‘There’s him, though,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘No, he’s going now. Listen, there’s the motor bike starting up,’ said Karen. And it was. From round the corner came the ‘thrum, thrum’ of the engine.

  Nick nodded, his face clearing. Thankfully Karen hurried back to the house. Jennie could be heard crying fretfully from the bedroom.

  ‘Mammy! Mammy!’

  Karen rushed into the kitchen and if it hadn’t been for his dirty plate and mug she would have thought it had all been a nasty nightmare and Dave had never been. She hurried upstairs to comfort her daughter.

  ‘There now, flower. The kitchen’s warm now, we’ll go down and you can dress by the fire. Come on, Brian, you too.’ She took the little girl in her arms and hugged her.

  It was only when she was back by the fire pulling on Jennie’s dress that she happened to glance up at the wall-clock to check the time. Or rather she glanced at the bare patch on the wall where the clock had hung for so long.

  Dave must have taken it, she realized in shock. But how had he managed to take such a bulky thing on the motor bike? A thought struck her. Had he taken anything else? She put Jennie aside for a moment and reached up to the mantel shelf for the ornament where she kept her savings. There had been eleven pounds there. Not a lot really, but it represented the hard work and thrift of the last few months. And it was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  PATRICK SAT IN the bar of the Quarryman’s Arms, a glass of whiskey on the table before him. He shifted uncomfortably. He was still in his working clothes and the warmth from the fire in the bar combined with the dust embedded in his trousers and made them sticky. He gazed morosely at the whiskey before him. Threepence it had cost and already he was feeling guilty about it. They could ill afford the money. Lifting the glass, he took a tiny swallow and the liquid burnt a fiery path over his tongue and throat. Ah, he thought, placing the glass carefully back on the table, but it warmed the belly too. A man was entitled to something after a hard day’s work.

  ‘Good evening, Patrick.’

  He looked up from his contemplation of the glass of whiskey as the door opened and Sean came in.

  ‘Sean!’ he said, pleasure lighting his face. ‘It’s good to see you. What brings you up here?’

  ‘I came to see you, Patrick.’

  ‘But how did you know I’d be here?’ he asked, mystified.

  ‘No mystery really, I saw you come in. I was visiting in Wolsingham and thought I’d come up here and try to see you. And as I got off the bus, there you were. Will you be having another drink now, Patrick?’

  He half-rose from his seat. ‘Let me get them,’ he began, fingering the change in his pocket and wondering if he had enough.

  ‘No, I will,’ said Sean quickly, and Patrick was glad to let him.

  He turned to the barman who was taking a great interest in the two Irishmen. Patrick he had seen before but the parson was new to him. The only other man in the pub was a quarryman, sitting in the corner and morosely drinking ale.

  Sean came back to the table with the whiskies and sat down opposite Patrick.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘however you found me, it’s great to see you, so it is. We can talk of old times at Maynooth, it’s just what I’m needing. My workmates are all right, but I haven’t much in common with them. And you look grand, Sean. You’ll have to excuse me, sitting here in my dirt like this. I’ve just come away from my work.’

  ‘I know, I heard you were working on the roads.’ Sean lifted his glass. ‘Good health to you, Patrick.’

  ‘And you, Sean,’ he echoed.

  Sean looked his friend over keenly. He hadn’t seen him for a while and concern showed in his eyes. Patrick moved uncomfortably, pulling his scarred and work-roughened hands down on to his lap. He was acutely conscious of his dirt-encrusted clothes and the smell of coal tar and sweat which clung to him.

  ‘What are you doing to yourself?’ Sean asked softly. ‘You, with your brain and educatio
n. For the love of God, man, why are you doing this heavy labouring work?’

  ‘We have to live,’ said Patrick. ‘How else can we manage if I don’t work?’

  ‘But you look terrible, man, ten years older than you are. If you can’t earn enough with the farm, why don’t you get work in the towns? An educated man like you, surely you could find something – office work or something?’

  Patrick drained his first glass and picked up the second. He didn’t answer Sean, how could he? How could he tell him that the reason he was so poverty-stricken was because they had been blackmailed by Karen’s real husband? All the pleasure which he had felt when Sean came into the bar evaporated. They couldn’t talk naturally, he thought, they were too far apart now. Draining the glass, he rose to his feet.

  ‘I have to get back, Karen will be waiting supper.’

  ‘But Patrick –’

  Sean too stood and put a hand on Patrick’s arm. He looked down at it. The skin was white and soft and the nails well cared for. Against his grimy sleeve it pointed up the difference between them, the gap which was growing wider.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll see you again,’ said Sean. ‘I can come over more often. We can meet in Wolsingham.’ He followed Patrick out of the bar.

  ‘Funny blokes,’ said the barman to the quarryman as he set a pint of ale before him. ‘Irish, I think.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed the quarryman.

  ‘Patrick,’ Sean said earnestly, ‘listen to me, man. I’ve left you alone all these years, thinking you would come to your senses. Look, I’m not here as a representative of the Church, I’m here as a friend, Patrick. Someone has to make you see –’

  ‘I’m going now, Sean,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the pony and trap, can I take you anywhere?’