A Mother's Gift (38 page)

‘That’s my coat, Gran,’ she cried in her dream and Gran shook her head.

‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘It’s my new mat.’

She worked the blue on and on until it filled the whole of the mat frame and Kate had shouted at her to stop and give her bonny blue coat back and Gran simply smiled and worked on, digging her prodder into the harn, in, out.

Kate woke with a start and turned over on her back. She glanced at the luminous dial of the clock on her bedside table. It was ten minutes past two. She had to be up at a quarter to seven to get to the hospital on time. The wind was soughing through the trees at the back of the house and whistling down the chimneys and it was almost as if it was playing a tune. And the branches of the plum tree at the front of the house beat a tattoo against the window in time to it.

Her mind returned to her sister-in-law’s words. Wild words about how Kate had betrayed Billy and her family, what it had done to Gran, her going off like a whore with a married man because he was rich.

Had she done that? Kate wasn’t sure. All her memories of that time were so hazy. She wasn’t even sure what she
had
felt for Matthew. Had she loved him? Well, whether she had or not afterwards there had been Georgina and everything was worth it because of Georgina. And now she had gone. Sometimes she wondered if Georgina had been a dream. A lovely sweet dream that had turned into a nightmare that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

‘Now you come here, lording it over the rest of us in your big house,’ June had said. ‘Playing at being a nurse until you get sick of it again; pretending you want to help folk no doubt. Well, we’re on to your game, lady. Lady Muck, I don’t think!’

Kate turned over on to her side and stared through a chink in the curtains at the clouds scudding across the sky. The wind had lessened now, the whistling in the chimneys stopped. It rustled softly through the leaves of the plum tree.

‘Stop it, June! Do you hear me?’ Willie had shouted as he grabbed June’s arm and pulled her away. ‘Stop making a show of yourself! Let the lass alone!’

June had struggled to free her arm but Willie was too strong for her, he dragged her away and down the road back to the village. Over his shoulder he had looked at Kate, standing there so white-faced and with her eyes dark and large and staring.

‘Take no notice, lass,’ he’d said.

‘Oh no, take no notice,’ June had shouted and he turned fiercely on her. What he had said then Kate couldn’t hear as they moved away.

‘Come on, Kate,’ said Dorothy. ‘I think you could do
with
an early night any road.’

Kate didn’t go into Winton much after that. She did her shopping in Bishop Auckland. Sometimes she met Ethel and asked her up to tea or something but even Ethel was not as friendly as she had been. There was nasty talk in Winton Colliery Rows; Kate knew it.

TIME WENT ON
, Kate entered her second year of training and it was hard.

‘I don’t know why you do it,’ Dorothy said one morning. ‘It’s not as though you need the money. Two hundred pounds a year for goodness sake. You pay me more than that.’

Kate was rushing through her breakfast standing up at the kitchen table because she had overslept. She gulped a mouthful of tea and buttered a piece of toast. ‘Well, I’m on holiday after today,’ she said through a mouthful of toast.

She had planned to have a few days’ rest and quiet, maybe go over to see Mary Anne. She had been promising to long enough. Dorothy was going to stay with her cousin in Hart. She liked to be beside the sea for a while. ‘The wind off the North Sea blows the germs away,’ she said.

Kate got into her little car and drove out of the drive and down the bank and up the other side. She was doing her three months stint in the operating theatre and she was thoroughly enjoying it.

Sometimes, lately, she forgot for a whole day at a time about Georgina. And then, when she remembered, the feeling of guilt was almost unbearable and she felt worth-less, unfit to have been Georgina’s mother and was that why she had been taken away from her?

Nonsense, she told herself, forcing herself to push the idea away, dismiss it from her mind. It was a natural part of the grief process, she’d read that somewhere. But she had to get on, keep her mind on her training. This time she was going to finish it, she was determined she would.

Kate parked the car in Escomb Road and ran up the ramp to the theatre. Today Mr Pierce was operating and he had a long list of patients to get through. There was one gastrectomy, two cholecystectomies and two appen-disectomies. Kate put on a theatre robe and wound a white turban round her hair and put a mask over her mouth and nose. The operating table was to be scrubbed, the sterilising to see to and then she was to act as the anaesthetic nurse, helping Dr Gibbon in the anteroom to the theatre.

The day went by in a blur as she worked, hurrying to do as Dr Gibbon asked, then whatever Theatre Sister asked. Then, when the theatre porter and nurse from the ward went through the swing doors to the ramp that led to the wards with the patient on a trolley, there was the clearing up to do. The washing of the instruments ready for the steriliser, filling the drums with clean swabs ready to be sterilised in the autoclave, tidying the anaesthetic anteroom.

At half past five she was free to go home. She took off her gown and hat and combed out her hair that was sticking to her scalp with the heat in the operating theatre.
Then
she could pull on her coat and hat and leave, for a whole fortnight. As she went out of the door she was followed by a chorus of, ‘Have a good time!’ and ‘You lucky devil!’ and the air was fresh and the wind cool on her hot face as she walked down the ramp to Escomb Road and her car.

There was a man leaning against the bonnet, it was too far away to recognise him at first. Then she saw it was Robert, his fair hair haloed in the late afternoon sun. As she approached he stood up straight and went to meet her.

‘Kate,’ he said and his pleasure at seeing her was plain to see. He took her hands in both of his. ‘How are you, Kate?’ he asked.

‘Hello Robert. What are you doing here?’ It was a while since she had seen him and then it had of necessity been a flying visit for she had been on a split shift and had to go back to the hospital for the evening.

‘Oh, business,’ said Robert vaguely. ‘Let’s go back to the house and I’ll explain. Or would you like to go for a meal? There must be one or two places where we could go in a town like Bishop Auckland.’

‘No, we’ll go back to the house,’ she replied. She got into her car and set off for Four Winds and he followed in his Bristol. She felt ridiculously happy to see him. It was just because Dorothy was away and she didn’t want to face an evening on her own, she wasn’t in the mood, she told herself as she turned into the drive and took her car straight into the garage to leave room for his on the driveway.

‘Won’t you stay for dinner? I’ve a couple of pork chops in the fridge and plenty of salad stuff in the garden,’ she
said
. Thank goodness for Dorothy who had insisted on stocking up before she went off to Hart Village. There was even a bottle of wine. She had had it in since Christmas for though she had got used to drinking wine when … when she lived in Fern Moor Cottage (her mind skirted round the thought of Matthew), she still felt it was slightly wicked to drink alone.

They worked together in the kitchen, chopping lettuce and slicing tomatoes and cucumber still warm from the greenhouse and she took a breath when she shouldn’t have while she was slicing onions and tears ran down her cheeks and he had to wipe them dry.

He was in charge of grilling the chops and they came out only a little charred round the edges.

‘You’ll still have to eat them,’ Kate warned. ‘It’s a sin to waste the meat ration.’

‘I like them like this,’ he said. He had opened the wine and gave her a glass and they toasted each other. She sipped from it as she set the table in the kitchen and slowly the evening began to take on a magical quality. She didn’t know whether it was the wine or Robert and she was having too good a time to care. It was so rarely that she had such a pleasurable change to her routine.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said as she put out the plates of food. She went into the sitting-room for the candle in the silver holder that normally stood on the mantelshelf in case there was yet another power cut. In the middle of the table it shed a soft glow as they ate and the shadows outside darkened.

This was the first time Kate had been alone with
Robert
, really on her own. Always before there had been Dorothy or sometimes Mary Anne. In fact it was the first time she had been alone with a man since Matthew died. They finished the meal and moved into the sitting-room and Robert put a match to the already laid fire.

Afterwards, Kate thought it must have been the effects of the wine for she didn’t move away when he took her hand and sat on the sofa and pulled her down beside him. He kissed her lips, lightly at first then with passion, his tongue probing between her lips and teasing hers. He touched her breasts under her blouse and felt the nipples harden in immediate response. He looked down at her face; her eyes were closed and a pulse beat at her temple.

‘Kate,’ he breathed and undid the buttons and pushed her bra out of the way. Her skin felt warm and inviting. He rubbed the base of his thumb over a nipple and she moaned as he took it between his teeth. Suddenly it became urgent and they stripped off their clothes and fell to the floor and he took her there, on the hearthrug before the fire.

Kate couldn’t think, only feel. She was floating on a sea of exquisite sensation and her mind was carried along with it. Her body was afire with it. Her heart raced.

Afterwards they lay together quietly, his head on her shoulder, his ragged breathing slowing. She felt pro-foundly at peace.

Yet a poisonous thought niggled at her, shattering the peace. Did he mean to take over from his stepfather in this, too? No! Of course he didn’t, did he? Kate sat up and fumbled for her clothes. He rolled away from her and smiled.

‘What is it, Kate? What?’

‘It’s late, I must go to bed, I get up early in the morning,’ she said.

Robert sat up too and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘No you don’t, Kate. You’re on holiday tomorrow, remember?’

‘Well, I have to—’

‘Kate, Kate, what’s the matter? Tell me.’

She was scrambling into her skirt and blouse, fastening the blouse lop-sidedly and having to do it again. He got to his feet and dressed, taking his time about it. Then he turned to her and took her in his arms and kissed her gently.

‘I love you Kate,’ he said. ‘Don’t send me away now.’ And then, intuitively, ‘This has nothing to do with Matthew Hamilton, Kate. I am not at all like him. I want to marry you.’

It wasn’t true, thought Kate. How could it be? He was younger than she was. She had thought he was interested in Georgina. Surely he had been interested in Georgina?

‘I’m older than you,’ she said as though that made an insuperable barrier.

Robert laughed softly. ‘So you are, Kate. All of three years I believe. A real old lady. I’m after your pension, how could you tell?’

‘No, seriously, I mean it. I feel years older than you. After all that has happened—’

He put a finger to her mouth. ‘Be quiet,’ he said. ‘Do you love me Kate? Because if you do, well then, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’

‘Your mother …’

‘Come to bed, Kate, now. Don’t say another word. I want to make love to you properly and I can’t wait any longer.’

‘I’m finished with men,’ she murmured as he led her upstairs.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Now which bedroom is yours?’

Kate woke next morning feeling absurdly happy; she stretched her body like a cat and turned to the other side of the bed. It was empty but she could hear sounds from downstairs so at least he hadn’t slipped away.

She got out of bed and pulled on her dressing-gown and went along to the bathroom to freshen up. She was shy of meeting him this morning, she realised. She had practically thrown herself at him last night hadn’t she? What with the wine and the candlelight and the sitting-room lit only by the firelight. Oh, she squirmed with embarrassment at the thought of it. Most of what she remembered of the evening was wrapped in a golden haze. All she remembered clearly was how she had felt, the deep feelings that had lain dormant for so long had betrayed her. It was the wine of course, it had lowered her inhibitions.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled as she went into the kitchen. He looked round from the stove where he was cooking scrambled eggs.

‘Good morning, Kate,’ he said. ‘I had a shower, I hope you don’t mind. I’m cooking scrambled eggs, I saw you had plenty of eggs.’

He stopped and looked closely at her. ‘What is it, Kate? What do you mean, you’re sorry?’

‘It was the wine,’ she answered. ‘I’m not used to it, I don’t normally drink.’

Robert started to laugh but stopped as he saw her expression. ‘The wine? Oh Kate, and I thought you loved me.’

She looked up quickly. Oh she did, she realised now how much. But she couldn’t tell him so. A man like Robert would never marry her.

‘I … it was a mistake, Robert. I’m sorry. I told you, I’m not interested, I want to finish my training, I want to go on, make something of my life. There’s no room for a man in my plans.’