When the Bough Breaks (32 page)

‘I've finished the chickens,' Beth shouted. ‘All right if we go to the common, Aunt Kathie?'

And just as always, Kathie told them, ‘Yes of course. Listen for the clock to strike twelve.'

‘It must be something to do with the work here,' Kathie said laughingly to Sally, ‘you look positively blooming.'

‘I'm getting as big as a house, but I feel sort of – oh, I don't know Mrs H – bountiful. Is that silly?'

‘It's wonderful. But, Sal, it's time you did less. Another six weeks and you'll be a mother. The lad who rides the delivery bike for Jack Hopkins is coming in for a few hours each day and I've had a letter from Bert Delbridge saying he wants to help out when he's on leave in three week's time.'

Sally chuckled. ‘Bet Sarah's chuffed. Do you reckon that's why he wants to spend his leave here Mrs H?'

The suggestion came as a surprise to Kathie. But hadn't Den told her she must be blind and never looked beyond her own affairs!

On the 1st November Sally had a son. It was Bruce who went to Deremouth to register the birth: Steven Clive Dunster, son of Sally Muriel Brent and Clive Anthony Dunster. He was born at Westways, a home with freedom for anytime visitors; but apart from those who lived in the house there were few to come and admire the new arrival. Sarah came at every available moment, Bruce came, Nanny Giles even brought Elspeth but the baby didn't attract her interest. It was some weeks before Clive knew he had a son, for on the lst November he was already on the high seas, destination unknown.

History was repeating itself as Steven's pram was put on the grass for him to sleep when he was very tiny; then as he grew strong enough to be propped on his pillows he liked to be wheeled to where the action was taking place; from that stage it seemed no time before he was staggering after the workers with his seaside spade, wanting to help. Sometimes Kathie drew comfort from seeing him following the pattern set by Jess; sometimes it hurt unbearably.

When word first got around that Dennis had walked out on her for ‘that Marley woman', the gossips enjoyed the excitement. But soon the waters closed over the incident and Kathie probably gained a little unmerited respect for carrying on with no visible self-pity. Nanny Giles continued to bring Elspeth to Westways; Oliver spent every available hour there and even persuaded Claudia that he could stay at school for part of his holidays and spend each day ‘helping' in the market garden. School holiday times were very special; there was plenty of work for everyone, and that included Bruce and Oliver.

‘I had a letter from my father this week,' Oliver would sometimes say with pride when he arrived on Saturday morning. Kathie had worried when the child had first written to his matinee idol father, fearful that Richard would be as casual as Claudia always had been. But she was wrong. Letters came regularly and between father and son a bond was developing that was to shape Oliver's life.

Nanny Giles loved Elspeth as if she were her own, but that didn't mean she had no sympathy for Bruce. She was a wise woman and one who missed very little so, whilst in the village Kathie was looked on as a hard-working woman whose husband had left her after she'd given him her best years, Nanny saw deeper. If Bruce and Kathie cared for each other, then it was no more than he deserved and each night when she knelt at her bedside and prayed that her darling Elspeth should always be happy, she added a rider that the love between Bruce and Kathie would find favour.

‘Have they suggested at school that Beth tries for a scholarship for Deremouth Grammar?' Bruce asked Kathie as he carried a box of runner beans into the shed for her to weigh. It was early summer of 1943. By the end of the year Beth would be ten.

‘Isn't it too soon?'

‘Too soon for the exam, but not for her to be primed for it. If she likes to come up to me, say a couple of evenings a week we could work together. I have enormous hopes for her.'

‘Bruce, you know we talked once about me persuading Den to see if we could adopt her. It's not Den now; it's you.'

‘I don't think the adoption society would see it like that. In their eyes my presence in your life would be decidedly detrimental.'

She frowned, realizing that what he said was true. If hard and fast rules had to be adhered to, then the last months of her marriage to Den would have presented a better chance of adopting Beth than putting her in the care of a divorcee with a lover. Hard and fast rules be damned!

‘I shall go to see this Tilly woman and see if I can get her to give her permission.'

‘It's half term next weekend. I'll come with you. With Sally here, we could stay in town for the night.'

She nodded, her dark eyes saying more than any words.

That same day, just as she often did, after she'd taken her daily delivery to Jack Hopkins she drove on up the hill to the lodge to spend a few minutes with Nanny Giles.

‘I'm going to visit Beth's old home on Saturday.'

‘That woman! Not fit to care for a dog, let alone a child. Mr Bruce has talked to me about it. He's really fond of that child – well, how can you help it? Breaks your heart to think when peace comes she'll be sent back. Bad enough for the poor mite when she'd seen no other way of living, but how can she slot back now after all this time in a home with love?'

‘That's why I'm going. She belongs here with all of us. Bruce is coming with me. We shall be home on Sunday.' Her words seemed to fill the room and she waited, unsure of what Nanny would read into them.

‘Ah. Well, my dear, you won't need a ration book for a night's lodging, but just in case you get asked for your identity card it's best you pop little Elspeth's in your bag. We don't want to throw a spanner in the works just when you hope to be able to take Beth as your own.'

For Kathie it was one of those moments that would stay with her. Her eyes stung with tears, not of sadness but of a nameless emotion that prompted her to take the elderly hand and carry it to her lips.

‘Nanny, I truly love him . . .'

‘I know that, my dear, or I'd not give you my little one's card. And he loves you too. I don't need telling. How long are you willing to live as you do now?'

‘Divorce, you mean. He will
never
do that. Even if she can't know, he would never do it. And I wouldn't want him to. She's more than a duty to him – but I don't have to tell you that. He once told me that sitting with her, knowing her contentment, he finds peace.'

‘Well, if ever a man deserved it, it's him.' Then turning to Elspeth, she said, ‘Now then, duckie, I'm going to get you your tea. How about a nice toasted muffin with some honey? She likes that, bless her, she always did even as a child. I'll just run and get that card for you.'

To Kathie, London was another world. She hated to feel out of her depth with any challenge, but she admitted to herself that she was glad Bruce was with her and seemed to understand the routes of the tube trains. Just as she was glad he was with her as she confronted Tilly, who wasn't a bit what she had expected. She had imagined a young woman, over made-up, smelling of cheap perfume, dressed in a way that advertised her profession. In fact she was older than Kathie, with teeth stained yellow from cigarettes, with badly kept nails where one coat of varnish had covered the last probably for years. Overweight, wearing clothes that were too tight and with laddered stockings, it was hard to imagine any man paying for her favours. The only odour that came from her was from her unwashed body.

Please God, don't make Beth have to come home to this! Kathie's glance locked with Bruce's and she knew his thought was the same as hers.

Tilly listened to all they had to say.

‘Well,' she observed thoughtfully, ‘tell the honest to God truth I'd as good as forgotten the kid. More likely tried not to remember. Funny kid she was too. And you want to hang on to her? Bugger me, that's a turn up for the books. Here, have a fag.' She pushed the half empty packet across the table.

‘Kind of you,' Bruce answered, ‘but they're hard enough to come by without handing them around. I am not Mrs Hawthorne's husband, I am headmaster of a neighbouring school and have really come to give you reassurance. At Westways, where Beth is living, she is well cared for, loved and extremely happy. When this war ends there will be many children who've been away from home so long that they will find difficulty in adjusting. I foresee a lot of unhappy homes as a consequence. If you are prepared to let Beth stay where she has settled you would be doing her a great kindness. To look back to 1939 is like looking to another world.'

‘Ah, buggered if it isn't. And when this lot ends and the blokes go home, what's to become of poor sods like me. Ain't getting any younger. Some of us, the young ones with a bit of the Hollywood look about them, they make a good living. But not everyone can pay their prices. But like I've always said, you don't look at the mantelpiece when you poke the fire.'

‘So what do you say about Beth,' Kathie prompted, expecting that Tilly was softening her up for a financial arrangement.

‘Never wanted the kid, well of course I didn't. And she was a funny one, like I said before. If you know how to set about getting it all legal, then I say good luck to you. I don't expect she remembers much about me and, like I said, I'd as good as forgotten her. I don't wish the child no harm, but bugger me, the last thing I want is some prissy miss coming back 'ere.'

So with not a penny exchanged, the wheels were set in motion. Of course there were formalities and a visit from a representative from the department responsible, a prim and humourless woman.

‘You say you are in charge of this market garden?'

‘Before the war my husband and I ran it together. But he was in the Territorial Army so, of course, as soon as the war started he had to go. Since then I've coped. It was hard going at first, but I'm lucky and everyone who works here seems part of one team. Right from her first day Beth wanted to help. She and Jess, my daughter, were the same age. They looked after feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs.' Looking back and picturing the scene Kathie had walked straight into the unforeseen trap.

‘Were? Were the same age? Where is your daughter now?' Officialdom smelt a rat.

‘Jess was killed in a road accident.' Kathie wished she had never mentioned her; she hated discussing her with this unsmiling creature.

‘How sad,' and a note was made on her pad. ‘Well, I think that will be all, Mrs Hawthorne. I've seen for myself that the child is well cared for here. You will be hearing.'

It was a month before the official papers came with confirmation of the adoption. Brockleigh had already broken up for the long summer vacation but Oliver had been allowed to stay for the holiday.

‘After all, he's heir apparent to Sedgewood so he might as well get used to the miserable great morgue of a place when it's not full of noisy boys,' Claudia had said laughingly to Den. The arrangement suited him perfectly. Den sometimes wished that Kathie could see how well he was doing. Their rented bungalow was convenient, he could move about independently. And outside he and Claudia had transformed yet another wilderness.

On the morning the official document arrived the post lady was late and Beth had already gone to school. Bruce and Oliver walked down at about ten o'clock prepared for a day's work and at twelve years old the boy had become an asset to Westways. Bruce would never make a natural gardener, but no job was beneath him. On that day Bert Delbridge was home on seven days' leave and by that time even Kathie – blind to everyone's affairs but her own, as Den would have said – knew who it was attracted him. It was two months since his last forty-eight-hour pass, the weekend when he and Sarah had gone shopping for an engagement ring. Yes, the workers in the field at Westways had much to be grateful for on that July morning, not least for Steven who staggered after his mother waving his seaside spade.

Kathie and Bruce said nothing about the document which had arrived that morning, but he walked to the village to see what it had to offer by way of making a teatime celebration. The best he could find was lemonade, biscuits (for which he passed up his ration book to have the points taken) and one bottle (no more allowed to any one customer) of British Type Port. The trays were prepared in the kitchen and the table put to the middle of the grass in readiness.

‘Hello, Aunt Kathie, I'm home,' Beth called as she slammed the garden gate, then not seeing Kathie in the garden she went into the house.

‘Gosh, what's all this?' she asked seeing the laid up trays. ‘Hello, Uncle Bruce. It looks like party time.'

‘You could say that,' he answered. ‘Can you go and fetch everyone over to the grass and I'll carry the trays out. Kathie's just finishing cutting some cucumber sandwiches.'

‘Is it someone's birthday?'

‘Even better. Round them all up – oh and here come Nanny and Elspeth. Bring them too. Don't take Elspeth walking till after party time.'

It was quite a gathering: Kathie, Bruce, Beth, Sally, little Steven, Oliver, Sarah, Bert, Nanny and Elspeth.

‘I wish we had champagne, for if ever there was an occasion to merit it, this is it.' Bruce said as he poured a not-quite-as-full-as-they-should-be British Type Port into six glasses for the adults, then three glasses of lemonade for Elspeth and the children. Steven hadn't reached the age for lemonade so he had milk in a feeder cup. ‘We want you to drink to Beth and the wonderful news that arrived this morning. She is now officially Kathie's daughter, chosen and adopted. To Beth.'

In the clamour of excitement Beth could do no more than look at Kathie in wonder. Chosen and adopted, never to have to go back to the place she only half remembered.

‘Chink!' Oliver tapped her glass with his. They looked at each other, neither knowing quite what to say on such an occasion yet feeling the excitement of the moment. Later she would be alone with Kathie, she might find the words to tell her how much it meant. But when Oliver took both her hands and pulled her away from the group, by one accord they started to do a ‘twister'. Round and round they went, faster and faster until at last they fell to the ground in peels of laughter.