When the Bough Breaks (19 page)

Before he could bury the puppy he had to break the news to Beth that Jessie wouldn't be coming home; she and Fudge had died together.

‘Think I knew really. Didn't want to know.'

He ached with pity for the waiflike child who, despite the good home cooking she was fed at Westways and despite Jessie's outgrown clothes from last year, a waif was what she still looked. To see sadness in the eyes of an adult is hard, but when a child looked at him with misery combined with fear, uncertainty and trust, he wanted to hold her in his arms, to break the barrier that held back her tears.

But there was something Beth wanted to tell him and listening to the words pouring out of her he was thankful; what she said gave him a hint as to how to approach the next few minutes. The only evidence of Beth's bottled up emotion was that the recent improvement in her speech was forgotten.

‘When Jess ran into the road and Fudge saw her and came dashing to meet 'er, she was so happy. It was like she'd seen something sort of wonderful – and she had of course cos she'd seen Fudge. What am I going to do with Fudge? If I ask them, after school tomorrow – I don't want to go to school, not without Jess . . .'

‘After school . . . ?' he prompted.

‘I been thinking the girls might help me dig a place for him. But I gotta hide him for tonight, cos you see Jessie's dad wasn't pleased about us having him and 'e might just throw him away like he was rubbish. Not Fudge . . . 'e was such a nice puppy, him and me and Jess, we sort of belonged like.' And with that her battle was lost. As her face crumpled she found herself lifted in his arms and held close.

As her uncontrolled sobbing grew quieter he passed her a handkerchief that he unfailingly wore in his breast pocket to match his tie. ‘Blow your nose and wipe your face and then I'll tell you what I think we should do.'

So it was that a minute or two later she gave Fudge a final stroke and goodbye kiss, then they reverently put him in the pillowcase Bruce had found in readiness and went off with a shovel.

Some days go like a flash, some seemed never to end. This one was one of the latter. When Kathie heard the click of the gate she ran out to meet Beth and already Bruce was starting back along the lane.

‘Bruce,' she called in a stage whisper as she ran to catch up with him, leaving Beth standing in the dark front garden. ‘Bruce, thank you. I forgot her. So ashamed. Didn't think of
her –
or Fudge. Do you know what's happened to him? We just drove straight past where Jess had – had been – hit by the van, just followed the ambulance.'

Her voice was tight; he knew the effort it cost her.

‘Fudge and Jess were hit at the same time. Beth and I have given him a grave in the grounds at the Hall.'

His hand was on her shoulder, the pressure of it saying more than any words. She longed for the comfort of it and yet it brought her near to the edge of her own control. Better by far to shut her mind and like a zombie to follow her nightly routine of jobs.

‘Beth's waiting for you,' he said softly. ‘She's very lost, frightened. But she tries hard not to let it show; there's a steely streak in her. Goodnight, my dear.' Perhaps it was the silent emotion finding an outlet, or perhaps it was the comfort of the moonless night shutting them away from their surroundings; whatever prompted him, he bent towards her and gently kissed her forehead before turning and walking away, immediately swallowed in the darkness, even the sound of his footsteps on the unmade lane soon lost.

That night she went up to the bedroom with Beth, neither of them speaking about the day that had changed their lives or about anything else. But Beth was glad to have her there and when Kathie bent to kiss her goodnight, just for a brief moment the child clung to her.

Downstairs she was again in zombie mode as she put into the oven the vegetable pie she had made in the morning. She tried not to think about how her world was when she was making it: Den sitting out there talking to Jack Hopkins, Fudge, as he spent hours every day, sprawled on the ground with his nose poking into the mesh of the netting that kept the market garden out of bounds. It had been one of those mornings that painted an image on her mind that would last forever, but an image that on that night she was frightened to see.

With the pie cooking, she laid the table in the warm room. She gave no thought to what she did; to give coherent thought to anything was beyond her. Den came in from his solitary and private retreat to the winter chill of the garden.

‘Don't give me anything to eat,' he said as she brought the golden-crusted dish to the table. ‘I feel as sick as a dog.'

‘We should eat. You'll feel better with food inside you.'

‘I said, I don't want it.' As if to prove his point he belched. Then, drumming his fingers on the mantelpiece above the old kitchen range he turned to look at her as he said, ‘You must see the billeting people in the morning and say that child must be found somewhere else.'

For a moment Kathie was pulled out of zombie mode.

‘I most certainly won't! Den, however
we
feel, it's not right to take it out on Beth. She was Jessie's friend. You don't understand; you never saw them together. They loved each other like sisters.'

‘She's not staying here!' In his misery he sounded cornered, frightened. ‘That's my last word.'

‘Good. Because there's no point in discussing it. This is Beth's home until her mother wants her back in London.' They glared at each other, needing to hit out, needing to find something less important than the true reason for their misery. ‘Anyway it's not for you to say who stays here; what difference can it make to you? You won't be here.' Was she trying to hurt him or herself? If only one of them could have reached out to the other, in sharing their anguish they might have found a way through it. Instead, they were as far apart as strangers, each cocooned in misery too achingly deep to find expression. Turning away from her, he went outside leaving her looking at the two plates of untouched food. First hers and then his, she carried them to the waiting bucket and scraped the food onto the bit already there to add to the chickens' corn in the morning

She washed up; she took Fudge's bowls, one for food and one for water, and scoured them well before putting them on a high shelf in the kitchen cupboard; she put out the milk bottle. It was after that, she was standing alone in the warm room she had the strangest feeling. Her mind carried her back four months to the day Den had left home and, knowing the days ahead would be hard for the little girl who so adored her father, she had tried to give a shape to the new pattern of their days.

‘We've got 'sponsibilities, Mum,' she seemed to hear the voice she knew so well. ‘Tell you what, Mum, I'll be the one who lays the table.' Then, only weeks ago: ‘Me and Beth are just going to take Fudge to the common. All right, Mum?' How could she never hear that happy, excited voice again? She wouldn't look ahead, not a day, not an hour. Live each minute, do the things that have to be done . . . And following her newly laid rule she went out to the coalhouse to fill the hod with coke so that she could bank up the range for the night.

Glancing at the clock she was surprised to see it was a quarter to eleven. So leaving the back door unlocked and the light still on, she went up to bed. Not for a second did she consider going outside to look for Dennis, to throw herself into his arms and let them share their anguish. She wanted just to be alone.

But once in bed and lying in the silent darkness, she wished she had stayed up. Now there were no jobs to do, nowhere to hide. The memory flashed into her mind of what Bruce had told her about the time of Elspeth's accident. ‘I prayed. God, how I prayed . . .' And had he been wasting his time and emotion? He'd prayed that she would come back to him; well, at least physically his prayer had been answered. And Elspeth was content; surely that was what he had wanted for her? Kathie closed her eyes tightly as if the tighter shut they were, the more ardent her own prayer. But it was no use. She hadn't prayed for years except for the occasional plea as she went about her daily business; and she'd never asked herself whether they were prayers to a divine Godhead or simply something to boost her confidence when she was faced with a task that hadn't previously come her way.

Now she found that wanting to pray and actually giving her whole mind to it were two different things. She had never felt so alone as she did lying there gazing into the darkness.

Since arriving home, Den had spent most of his time sitting alone on the upturned oil drum in the garden, smoking one cigarette after another, frightened to let himself open his heart to Jess. Angry at the world, he needed someone to vent his spite on – and who better than Kathie who had been so remote from him through the last hours. How could she want to cook supper as if their lives hadn't been torn apart? Or perhaps hers hadn't been, not as his was. He pictured the golden crust of the pie and the very thought of it made him retch emptily. Since breakfast all he had eaten was a bowl of soup. He heard the clock on the stables at the Hall strike eleven. He must go in. Kathie would be asleep by now, she wouldn't want to talk about . . . about Jess, about the moment they had been told. Imagine the relief of losing himself in sleep. But sleep comes from a contented mind – either that or physical exhaustion. Standing up he felt dizzy.

Why Jess? Why not that other kid? If she went, no one's life would be wrecked. Or why not
him
? Jess had been the future, now there was nothing, nothing except the prospect of going to fight some poor devil probably with a wife and kids. Don't think about it.

If Kathie was asleep he'd wake her up. All his emotions were heightened on that January night and the desires of his body responded. He couldn't analyse why it was he felt as he did, he didn't even try.

When Kathie heard him coming up the stairs she turned on her side pretending to be asleep. Could it be less than twenty-four hours ago that he had come unexpectedly into their room? It was like looking back at another life, at two different people. The images in her memory only made her feel more isolated.

She heard him stripping off his clothes and waited expecting him to reach in the dark for his pyjamas. Instead he climbed naked into bed. She didn't move; he lay on his back moving his head restlessly. With a sudden movement he sat up, then pulled her to lie on her back, climbing above her. He'd never been a man with a high sex drive, so what he was doing drove the wedge further between them,

‘No, Den! You
can't
want that! Not tonight, not with—' But she couldn't say it, she couldn't say Jessie's name. Her sentence hung between them, unfinished.

‘I must. Can't you see, I must.' He was pushing her legs apart with uncharacteristic roughness; another second and he would have forced himself into her. It was the only way to reach the exhaustion that would let him escape into sleep. ‘You've got to let me.'

‘No, damn you! Get away from me!' With more strength than she knew she possessed, taking his full weight she wrenched him off her then, as he lay breathless at her side, turned her back on him.

In the stillness of the room she heard the quickening of his panting, and lying perfectly still she could feel the jerky movement from his side of the bed. Never in all the years they had been together had she felt about him as she did in those moments. That he could have come expecting them to find pleasure in sex disgusted her. But this was even worse. He must have known she could hear and recognize what he was doing, it was almost as if he was glorying in it. What a moment for half remembered words to come to her, come from where? Perhaps heard on one of the rare occasions she and her mother had gone to church? ‘Could you not watch with me one brief hour?' Tonight belonged to Jess, to Jess who was part of them and yet was wholly herself, her precious, glorious self. His movement grew faster, his breathing a series of grunts as he brought himself to a climax. She felt he wanted her to hear and to know that he managed well without her. Normally she could never have harboured such thoughts; no matter how tired she had been, at the slightest hint that he wanted them to make love she had always been wide awake and ready to respond. Now he was still, it was all over and she knew from experience that he would immediately lose himself in sleep. But what was that? Burrowing his head into the pillow in an attempt to muffle the sound, he sobbed.

Why was it she couldn't reach out to him? What had happened to them that they couldn't share their despair? Then another sound, surely it was real or was it just in her imagination? Clearly she heard Jess laugh. ‘You know what, Mum? I've got Fudge with me. Mum, keep on loving Beth. She doesn't want the war ever to end cos she likes it with us and never wants to go back to that London place.' By then Kathie knew she heard it in her imagination, but even so she nodded, mouthing the words, ‘I promise you, Jess.'

Her suffering was like a heavy weight, sapping her of energy and even of interest. She heard Den's muffled crying but felt isolated from his pain. This is Den, she told herself, he is your life, and you love him – so why can't you turn round and hold him close? There was no answer or, if there was, she hadn't the energy to look for it. The thought of lying where she was through the long hours of the night was unbearable. Trying to move without disturbing the covers, she got her feet on the cold linoleum floor covering. Her dressing gown was in the wardrobe, so she'd have to manage without. Once she got down to the ‘warm room' she'd sit close to the fire. But she didn't get even as far as the head of the steep, narrow stairs for escaping from the sound of Dennis's crying she heard Jess's. ‘Keep on loving Beth.' There was no sound of that familiar voice but as clearly as if the words had been spoken, Kathie felt the nearness of Jessie's spirit. ‘Loving Beth . . . loving you . . .' she answered silently. Standing in the dark passage just for a moment she was held by a feeling of peace. ‘As long as I have her to love, I shall still have you.' It made no sense and the moment passed as she crept into the bedroom.