Claire

by Margaret Tanner

  Houston was much larger than Claire had thought it would be. They were able to rent two rooms at a boarding house. It wasn’t much of a place, quite rundown in fact. At least it was fairly clean and would do until they all obtained work and decided what they wanted to do. A live-in housekeeper’s position for her and Ma, and a ranch hand position for Randy would be perfect.

  They treated themselves to supper at a nearby diner, and over mashed potatoes, beef steaks and greens discussed their options.

  “Jobs on a ranch would be best,” Claire said. “That way we can all stay together.”

  “Randy spoke to me earlier, Claire, he asked my permission to marry you.”

  “What!” Her fork clattered against her plate.

  “I love you, Claire, I always have.”

  “But…”

  “I think you should get married.” Ma shocked her by saying. “Randy is a good boy who will always look after you. It would be much easier too, with things the way they are.”

  She liked Randy, but loved Aaron.

  “Forget Aaron,” Randy said with a slight downturn of his lips. “He’s the heir to the Triple K ranch and has to marry accordingly. As befits his station.” The last few words were a perfect imitation of Estelle. They all laughed. It was true. Look at how he was sparking with Joybelle at the party? Not to mention him telling her about my party dress being a hand-me-down. No man who truly cared for a woman would do such a thing.

  Randy was good looking and she liked him. He had given up his family for her and Ma. She argued with herself for a couple of minutes. “All right, I’ll marry you.”

  His excited whoop of delight caused several heads to swivel toward them. When he kissed her goodnight at the door of her room it wasn’t unpleasant. Not exactly toe curling like Aaron’s, still, quite nice.

  ****

  They were married by a local preacher the next afternoon. As Randy placed the simple gold wedding band on her finger she noticed a slight tremor in his hands. She was now Mrs. Randolph Kirby.

  Ma kissed them both. “I’m so pleased, I hope you have as much happiness together as I did with your Pa, Claire.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed Ma’s cheek.

  “Thank you, Ma,” Randy said with a grin, as he encompassed the two women with the one giant hug.

  The next morning when they met up with Ma, Claire was now, in every sense of the word, Mrs. Randolph Kirby. After the pain of Randy taking her virginity, she had enjoyed his lovemaking. Each time they did it, she enjoyed it a little more.

  Their marriage proved to be a good omen. She obtained a job at the diner where they had eaten their first supper in Houston. Ma got a job cleaning house for the bank manager’s wife two days a week and more importantly, Randy got offered a job helping take six hundred head of cattle to a property near the Rio Grande.

  “I don’t like leaving you. I’ll be away for weeks, but the pay is good. If things work out, it could mean a permanent job at the boss’ ranch.”

  “I’m being selfish, Randy, it’s a good opportunity. I’ll miss you.”

  “Me too, darlin’. A ranch job is what we really wanted. There would be a place for your Ma, too. The thing is, I have to leave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “Yeah, the only reason I got the job is because someone pulled out at the last minute and Jenkins was desperate. They’re moving out tomorrow.”

  She could tell he was eager to take the job. He had lived on the Triple K all of his life, ranching was what he knew and loved. He had sacrificed a lot for them. She couldn’t be selfish and hold him back because she was scared of being in a big city without him.

  “Yes, go, it sounds too good to refuse. Ma and I will be fine.”

  ****

  The next day after Randy rode away, a dark cloud settled over Claire. He obviously meant more to her than she had realized. She sat brushing her hair in the chipped mirror in their bedroom. She had to start work in the diner by eleven o’clock to help prepare and serve lunch, and would stay there until after supper. It would be a long day, worth it moneywise and timewise, though, would stop her fretting about Randy.

  She only had a couple of cotton gowns, hand-me-downs from Estelle, and they were faded from much washing. Ma had sewn braiding along the hemline and cuffs so they didn’t look too bad. A full length white apron would be provided, Maisie, who owned the diner, had said.

  She made her way to her mother’s room and tapped on the door. “Ma, it’s me.”

  She turned the handle and it was unlocked. “I thought we agreed to keep our doors locked in case of unsavory characters roaming around.”

  “I know.” Ma sounded tired and dispirited. Her face was pale, the skin stretched over her now prominent cheek bones.

  “Are you sick?” Claire dropped to her knees beside the bed. Her mother hadn’t even bothered to get up.

  “Actually, I do feel a bit sickly.”

  “I’ll stay here with you.”

  “No, no, go to work, you need the job. I’ll get up in a while.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m proud of you, Claire, the way you turned out. Your Pa would be too, he always said you were destined for greatness.”

  Claire laughed. “Working in a diner isn’t anything great. Goodbye, Ma. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “Now, you’re not to be worrying, after a short rest, I’ll be as good as new. I might stroll down to the little fruit and vegetable market later.”

  Claire kissed Ma’s cheek and it felt strangely cold, causing a cloak of worry and despair to settle around her; she was becoming fanciful.

  Maisie’s diner was only a couple of streets away. It was small and homely, with only a dozen tables covered with red and white checked cloths. A large fireplace down the far end of the room would throw out plenty of heat in the cold weather. Coach lamps hanging along the walls were more decorative than useful. There again, in the winter they might be necessary.

  Maisie waddled over and gave her a hug. “Welcome, my dear. Are you all right?” She was a tall woman who had run to fat. Her face was wrinkled, her hair sprinkled with grey. “You look a little woebegone.”

  “My husband rode off this morning, he’s going on a cattle drive and will be gone for ages. I miss him already.”

  “You’ll get by, my husband was a seafaring man who was gone for months at a time. You learn to cope otherwise you go under. You’re a fighter Claire, I noticed it the first time I saw you. If one door closes you make sure another one opens. We’ve got time to have a coffee.

  Claire followed Maisie out to the small, well set up kitchen that abounded with the aroma of coffee and freshly baked bread. Maisie cut two slices off the still warm loaf and spread them with butter before pouring out the coffee.

  “There, get these into you. You need fattening up by the look of you. Can’t abide skinny women, most men can’t either.” She winked.

  Claire laughed. “I’m naturally skinny. Ma was a good cook and we ate well on the ranch.”

  “Mm.” Maisie’s brown eyes peeked out from wrinkly folds of skin. “Why did you leave?”

  “There were problems.” Why should she keep secret what Jacob had done, what he intended to do? She gave Maisie a shortened version of what had happened.

  “Men, they just can’t keep it inside their pants.”

  Claire laughed. ‘I think that sums it up nicely.”

  “You did well to leave when you did. Stands to reason, he’d be looking to go after a pretty young thing like you.”

  “It’s horrible. Old men.” Claire shuddered. “To think they still want to, well you know.”

  “Do it.” Maisie snapped the word out. “Older men are worse than the young ones, you can take my word for it, dear.”

  “I’m lucky to be married to a handsome young man like Randy.”

  “You aren’t passionately in love with him, are you?”

  Claire gasped in shock, was the woman psychic? “How do
you know? I do love Randy.”

  “Yes, you’re fond of him and grateful, but your love lies elsewhere. It’s in the eyes,” Maisie went on. “They mirror a person’s soul, if one knows how to read them.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “A daughter, she used to help me here, then a few weeks ago up and left with a man passing through town. She’s a fool, there again, being thirty-two she felt like she’d been left on the shelf, got an offer of marriage and took it. That’s why I needed someone to help out. I’m too old to run this place on my own now. Hardly make ends meet as it is. I have to keep prices down to get the customers through the door yet food is so expensive these days.”

  At lunch time Maisie did the cooking and dished up the food, Claire did the serving. The customers were a mixture of young women and a few men in shabby suits. Probably people from nearby shops and businesses having their one decent meal of the day. Like her, they probably lived in local boarding houses with little or no cooking facilities.

  “Well, well. If it isn’t Mrs. Kirby.”

  Claire swung around and spotted Mr. Percy, their middle-age landlord. He was a short, skinny runt of a man with a rat-like face and she disliked him. Ma had cautioned her to be polite to him so she always was. He had the power to evict them, throw them out into the street anytime he chose. Plenty of desperate people waited to take their place.

  Once Randy returned, they would pack up and leave, hopefully to the ranch his boss owned. “Mr. Percy, fancy meeting you here.” She forced herself to smile as she handed him the menu.

  “I always have the same order. Beef steak, mashed potatoes and greens with black coffee. Maisie knows what I like, I’m one of her regulars.”

  “Well, it is nice and handy for you. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She backed away and almost cannoned into two dark-haired young women, mirror images of each other. They wore identical low-cut, bright pink gowns.

  “New here,” they chorused. “I’m Trixie and she’s Pixie.”

  “Oh, I’m Claire. Are you regulars?”

  Their order was hot biscuits and beans. Claire headed back to the kitchen with the orders.

  “Is Mr. Percy here? Watch him, he’s a sneaky little polecat.”

  “He’s my landlord.”

  “All the more reason to be wary of him. Once your husband gets back, leave that place, nothing good ever happens there.”

  “What do you mean?” Fear clogged Claire’s throat.

  “Forget it, just be careful of him.”

  “Pixie and Trixie want biscuits and beans.”

  Maisie laughed, causing her fat jowls to wobble. “They always ask for the same thing because they like the way I cook it.”

  “Are Pixie and Trixie their real names?”

  Maisie slopped a ladle full of potatoes on Mr. Percy’s plate before answering. “Probably not, suitable for their line of work, though.”

  “What do you mean?” Claire buttered the hot biscuits for them.

  “They’re soiled doves.”

  She stared without comprehension.

  “Prostitutes.”

  “Oh, no.” Her hands flew to her face in shock and disgust. She had actually spoken to prostitutes.

  “Don’t condemn them, they have to earn a living the best way they can.”

  “But….”

  “If you’re hungry enough you’ll barter anything, even your body if you’ve got nothing else.”

  Claire’s hands trembled as she picked up a tray containing the three orders and reluctantly walked out of the kitchen, forcing her legs to carry her.

  “Here you are, Mr. Percy.” She hated the way his beady eyes wandered over her body, and badly wanted to slap the leering smirk off his ugly face. “Enjoy your meal.”

  She made her way over to the twins, perhaps they weren’t so bad after all, when compared to her landlord. They were what they were and didn’t try to conceal it. Who was she to condemn them when she didn’t know their circumstances?

  “What’s your name?” one of them asked as she took the plate Claire handed over.

  “Claire.”

  “Thank you,” the other twin said, accepting her plate.

  “Enjoy your meal.”

  Claire was exhausted as she wearily wended her way home, only a couple of blocks fortunately. She didn’t like the area at all. Maisie had given her half a dozen flap-jacks left over from supper. They could have one each tonight and the rest for breakfast in the morning. Tomorrow Ma was going to move into her and Randy’s room to save money. It did have a single burner cooker, so at least they could make hot coffee.

  Pushing the still unlocked door open she stepped inside. A cold aura enveloped the room. Ma sat in a chair. Something wasn’t right. She was still. Too still.

  Claire rushed over and burst into tears. Ma was dead. She grabbed one of her hands and it felt ice cold, stiff. She must have passed shortly after I left this morning.

  Oh, Ma, you died all alone. I should have been here for you. Sobs shook her body and she collapsed on to the bare wooden boards and stayed there. Her beautiful mother was gone. “To join Pa,” a voice whispered inside her head. “Life was too hard for her down here.”

  It was Jacob Kirby’s fault. She hated the man even if he was her father-in-law now. To think a man with so much wealth would expect the widow of a loyal worker to share her bed with him.

  Why hadn’t she realized what was happening over the years? What kind of fool was she? Randy had known, Aaron too, everyone except her.

  The sobbing intensified. Finally, Claire raised her head. She didn’t know what to do. It was night time now. She dared not try to find the sheriff at this hour. Mr. Percy, she hated the thought of going anywhere near him, but had no choice. He had rooms in the attic area.

  Planting a kiss on her mother’s waxen cheek, she left the room and with her heart breaking into a million pieces, stumbled upstairs to the landing where the door led to the attic. She knocked loudly.

  “Who is it?” Mr. Percy growled.

  “Claire Kirby. Please, it’s an emergency.”

  “It better be.” He opened the door, pulling up his braces as he did so. “What ya want?”

  She glanced into the room and shock punched the breath from her lungs. A young woman cowered on the unmade bed, clutching a sheet around her naked breasts.

  “My mother passed away.” Tears filled her eyes.

  “Stop blubbering. “What ya mean, passed away? Dead?”

  “Yes, I found her in the chair.”

  “Too late to do anything tonight. See the sheriff in the morning.” He gave her a dismissive nod. He swung around to the young woman. “Git. Same time Thursday.”

  Claire stumbled away. The man was a pig. The woman’s face had been free of make-up, she looked ordinary. Suddenly remembering what Maisie said, dread shivered all the way through her.

  Returning to the bedroom, she placed a scarf over Ma’s face. Not wanting to leave her alone for the night, she climbed into her bed. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Claire must have dozed off. Glancing at Ma’s mantel clock, the hands hardly seemed to move at all. Finally, dawn tinged the sky with pink. She got up, poured cold water into a basin, had a wash and changed her clothes. All she could do now was wait until it was light enough to find the sheriff.

  “Randy, where are you now,” she cried out in anguish. She needed him like never before. He would be devastated too, because he was fond of Ma, always had been. His own mother had died birthing him and Estelle didn’t care about him. It was always Ma he turned to for comfort.

  ****

  The next two days were a nightmare. Claire found the sheriff and told him what had happened. He came to the boarding house accompanied by the doctor and undertaker. Ma had died from a heart attack.

  “Even if you’d been here, Mrs. Kirby,” the doctor said kindly. “You couldn’t have done anything. Her heart was plum wore out.”

  It didn’t make her feel any bett
er, though. The preacher who married her and Randy performed the burial service. No one except Maisie, her, and the preacher attended.

  Chapter Three

  Two months after Ma’s death, Claire knew she was carrying Randy’s baby. He would have been excited if he had been here. How happy Ma would have been. She lay alone in an unmarked grave in the local cemetery, because there wasn’t any money to pay for a headstone.

  In desperation, she had written to Aaron asking him for money as her meager savings barely paid the undertaker. She received no reply. The money from her job at the diner was all she had. If Maisie hadn’t let her take home the scraps she’d be starving as her wages barely covered the rent.

  Every two weeks Mr. Percy would come banging on the door expecting to be paid. She had to get another higher paid job. Why hadn’t she heard from Randy? He didn’t know Ma had died, yet knew how bad their financial position was. Every second day she would trudge to the bank to check if Randy or Aaron had sent anything. Always it was the same. Nothing.

  I can’t go on like this. Work was hard to get, she had applied for numerous jobs and always been refused. Maisie tried to give her a few extra hours even though she was struggling herself. With winter closing in her customers had dwindled. Pixie and Trixie, Mr. Percy and a couple of young bank clerks who shared a room in the same building as her, were now the only ones who came in for lunch every day. The weekend was slow at lunchtime, a little busier for supper.

  This one particular day was bitterly cold. The sky was grey and sullen, the clouds looking ready to drop their watery load at any moment on some unsuspecting person’s head. She was in the kitchen peeling potatoes when Maisie waddled in followed by a grim-faced sheriff. Ice formed around Claire’s heart. She could feel the chill all the way down to her toes.

  “Mrs. Kirby.” The sheriff held his Stetson between his hands. His sheriff’s badge shone with rain drops. Under a black coat, she saw the outline of twin holsters.

  “I’ve got bad news. I think you should sit down.”

  She slumped in a chair, instinctively knowing before he uttered the words. “I’m sorry, your husband is dead.”

  A roaring noise almost ruptured her eardrums. Everything started to turn black until Maisie pushed smelling salts under her nose.