Nest of Sorrows (9 page)

Rachel looked at her daughter and shivered slightly. She recognized that expression. She remembered it reflected in a mirror years ago when she’d been in love. When she’d thought she was in love. ‘Nice time, lass?’

‘Great.’

Rachel glanced at Peter. ‘Was . . . was Mike there?’

‘Eh? Oh Mike, yes, he was there. With his new girlfriend.’

Peter threw his fag-end into the fire. ‘Oh heck,’ he said with false sadness. ‘There’s love’s young dream gone for a running jump, eh?’

‘Pardon?’ Kate glanced at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Oh, him. Yes. Running jump, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ll not be getting married straight after college after all, then?’ Was that a gleam of hope in his eye?

‘I might,’ she said defiantly.

She wept that night, soaking her pillow with bitter tears as she mourned her lost love. Yet hope lingered in her bruised heart, hope for a future that had to become a different dream now. Perhaps Geoff would be in the dream, perhaps he wouldn’t. But the pain lingered till morning and for many days to come, because the pain was bigger than the pleasure.

At college, Kate was treated as very special because she had two men. There was the young one who used to come over from Cheshire on the bus, a fine-looking blond chap, he was, quite muscular yet sensitive. Everyone knew Mike was sensitive because he carried a portfolio. So in this one boy, Kate had just about everything. Who could need more than brawn and sensitivity?

But then there was her other chap, the one who sent roses on exam days, he who turned up in a car with bouquets and chocolates and lovely manners. Many of the girls were smitten with Geoff, but opinion was divided more or less fifty-fifty. Half the girls felt she should settle for someone her own age, while the rest thought Geoff Saunders too great a chance to pass up. He had money, a car, a good job, superb clothes and, as Kate reminded them jovially, excellent taste in women.

But Mike haunted her, often missing lectures just to come over and see her. ‘That bloody French girl!’ he cursed more than once. ‘I could murder our Pamela. If she’d looked after her penfriend, you would never have gone off with this Geoff chap. Is there nothing I can do? Nothing I can say? Remember our grand plan, Kate. How we were going to get married after college and work together on our painting. He’s a pleb. You can’t leave me for a pleb!’

She stared hard at him. The hurt he had dealt her had remained raw for many months. Geoff had been the balm, the booster of her ego, the answer to her pain and sorrow. ‘I haven’t left anyone for anyone. He’s just a good laugh . . .’

But he was more than a good laugh. Geoff was her lover, had been her lover for a few weeks now. And she had given herself so freely once he’d explained about keeping her safe from babies. Now, she could scarcely manage to be in the same room as him without touching and caressing him. Sex was addictive. Sometimes she made up her mind to leave it alone, to resist temptation, yet she quite frequently made the first move. But it was easy to leave Mike alone, because sex with Mike would have meant total commitment – he was that kind of boy. Geoff wasn’t a boy, and that was the difference. If she tired of him, he wouldn’t make a song and dance about it. Not that she would tire. No, he would never become boring. Though his mother was something of a trial.

Then, when Kate was exactly halfway through college, the unthinkable happened. More to the point, something which ought to have happened didn’t, and she found herself in a terrible tear. Two girls had already left college because of being pregnant, and Kate looked like being the third.

They sat in his car outside the main gate. ‘We’ll just have to get married rather earlier than planned,’ he said reasonably. ‘Pity about your finals, but I’m afraid the child will be born before you ever get into the exam room.’

She twisted her skirt between her fingers. ‘Mam’s already upset because I didn’t go to university like Judith. As for my father – he’ll blow his top!’

‘Leave them to me.’

‘But they don’t even know you exist! And I want to finish college, I really do!’

‘I’m sorry. What else can I say, Kate? I took every precaution, but these things are not always a hundred per cent reliable. Get this term over, then we’ll go for a licence.’

‘Oh God!’

‘What?’

‘They’ll want it to be Catholic.’

‘No can do, old girl. My mother would not be seen dead in a papist church. We’ll have to settle for the registry.’

‘That will be like living in sin as far as my family’s concerned.’

‘The details will sort themselves out, my darling. The main thing is to make sure that our baby is born in wedlock.’

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so.’

‘There’s no “suppose so” about it. We’re going to get married anyway, aren’t we?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was small and far away.

‘You’re not still seeing that Mike fellow, are you?’

She shook her head. ‘He’s given up the ghost, found himself another girl.’ No, she didn’t feel any regret or jealousy. She didn’t. And anyway, she was in no position . . .

‘In about six weeks, then?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Our wedding. Six or seven weeks.’

‘Oh, right.’

A fortnight later, she arrived home for the weekend sporting a large diamond twist on the third finger of her left hand.

‘Who?’ Rachel’s eyes were huge with surprise. ‘Geoff who? And what will your father say?’

‘Saunders. His name’s Geoff Saunders and it doesn’t particularly matter what anyone says. We’re getting married . . . soon. He’s older than me, quite a bit older. I met him last year at the leavers’ dance.’

Rachel folded her arms and put her head on one side. ‘And what does he do for a living?’

‘He’s a manager with Transglobe Plastics in Trafford Park.’

‘You’ll finish your course first, though?’

Rachel got no answer, because Peter chose this moment to put in an appearance. He was in a jovial mood, having won several pounds which he had used to improve his demeanour by drinking a few double whiskies. ‘Ah, you’re here, then.’

Kate inhaled deeply. ‘Yes, I’m here. And I’m engaged.’

‘What?’ He stumbled against the sideboard, righting himself immediately with the aid of his cane. ‘To that soft Mike lad? Him with the paintbrush and easel?’

‘No. Someone else. Mam will tell you. I’m off to bed.’

‘Oh no you’re not, young lady! You can stop here and explain yourself. Do you think your mam and I have gone without all these years so that you could get wed before twenty? Judith’s not getting wed, is she? Oh, no. She’ll stop on and do her Masters – likely one of them doctorates too. But you’ve got to go and get mixed up with a man, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I have!’

‘Why? Just tell me why the bloody hell . . .’

‘To get away from you.’ Her tone was even. ‘I’m not stopping in this house a minute longer than I have to.’

The silence that followed was deafening. Rachel broke it by fiddling with the fire, poking the ashes through the basket and piling on some fresh coals. ‘Cold for June,’ she muttered lamely.

Peter staggered across to his usual chair. ‘This is all the thanks we get,’ he said to no-one in particular.

‘In life, people tend to get what they deserve,’ said Kate. ‘You have never given me anything except a feeling of inadequacy because I was born female. And as for you, Mam, you’ve supported him by not sticking up for me. I know you’re a spirited woman – I’ve seen you happy and angry – I know you’re capable of normal emotions. But you’ve let him rule you just for the sake of peace. Your attitude to him is almost apologetic . . .’

‘Enough of that!’ snapped Rachel. ‘I’ve done me best, which is more than can be said for some here. You could have been something great, but oh no, you went off to be an ordinary teacher. So don’t be telling me what I should have done. We all know what you should have done, Katherine Murray!’

Peter said nothing. He simply stared at Kate with such hatred that she turned and ran from the room, pounding up the stairs until she reached the relative safety of her bedroom. It was then, as she lay on the bed, that the pain came and she realized that she was no longer pregnant – if indeed she ever had been pregnant. And for some reason she could not explain to herself, she began to cry, sobbing and howling a mixture of sadness and relief. But she clung to Geoff’s ring all the same as she rolled around the bed with the familiar agony of female cramps. Whatever happened, she would marry him after college. No way would she stay in this house of misery.

Dora Saunders’ pale blue eyes were narrowed with shock as she studied Kate’s engagement ring. ‘So, when’s it to be, then?’

‘As soon as she finishes college.’ Geoff’s tone was conciliatory. ‘We shan’t be too far away, Mum. It’s not as if you’re being abandoned to the elements. Not emigrating to China, are we?’ He hugged his fiancée, then pulled his mother into the crook of his other arm. ‘We’ll be a family, a real family.’

Kate and Dora stared at one another, the younger woman feeling a brief shiver of fear as she caught the animosity in Dora’s face. The woman hated her. God, what was she coming into at all?

Dora, meanwhile, was fighting with very mixed emotions. He was getting married, so at least that proved he was normal. There’d been a few snide comments in the Co-op over the years, remarks about lads staying with their mothers longer than was good for them, loud conversations about ‘nancy-boys’ and the like. This would stop the wagging tongues. But he was leaving her. And she’d three bedrooms, there was plenty of space here for them. She repeated her plea, trying not to sound too desperate in front of ‘that girl’. ‘You know you’re welcome here. Stop here till you find somewhere decent.’

‘We’ve a year to do that.’ Geoff patted his mother’s shoulder. ‘And I’ve plenty for a deposit. We’ll come and see you often, won’t we, Kate?’

‘Yes.’ She looked hard at the woman who would be her mother-in-law. In her own way, this old biddy was nearly as bad as Kate’s father! Kate wanted a life of her own, a life without parents in it. She wanted a cottage with roses . . . no. Mike Wray was gone, gone forever. This was a different kind of love, real love, she told herself stubbornly.

In later years, Kate would look back at this moment, seeing herself, Geoff and Dora caught up, frozen in a sliver of time. Because, somehow, this particular instant summed up everything that was wrong with Kate’s life. It all came down to lack of communication. If there had only been honesty. If Dora could have said, ‘I’m scared of losing him’, if Geoff had said, ‘I can never really leave my mother’. Better still, if the man could have admitted there and then that he knew as little of love as Kate herself did.

And in other areas, too. If Kate had only opened up to her mother, ‘I must marry him, I almost had his child and he needs me’. Or to her father, ‘Dad, I know you started loving me in your own way, I know that way is limited’. But no-one ever said anything. Rachel never expressed her love for her younger daughter; Kate herself seldom gave out any positive emotion. But should she blame herself? Should she? After all, in the summers of ’53 and ’54, she had been so young . . .

In July 1954, Kate and Geoff were married at the registry office in Bolton. Rachel wore a blue suit and an air of great hurt because her daughter’s marriage was not a ‘proper’ one. Dora wept copious tears into a scrap of lace while Judith, down from Oxford for the summer, looked gorgeous in pink. Peter, still drunk from the night before, kept a reasonably low profile as the couple walked in together – there was none of the traditional giving away in this brief ceremony.

Afterwards, the reception was held in the semi Geoff had bought with his dead father’s legacy. One or two of Kate’s old friends from school were present, but the majority of the guests were Geoff’s, colleagues from work who took an abundant interest in plumbing, new windows and the greenhouse at the bottom of the back garden. Kate, who looked stunning in a princess line dress of cream satin, felt everyone’s loneliness during the catered buffet meal. The hired servants seemed to have a better time than anyone – Kate caught them sipping furtively in the kitchen. Her poor mother looked so bereft and solitary seated in a corner, yet every time Kate went near her she was admonished, ‘See to your guests, never mind us.’

So Kate found herself alone in the spare back bedroom, no-one to talk to, no-one to empathize with. Till Judith came in.

‘What’s up?’ asked the beautiful Oxford graduate.

‘Crazy. I feel lonely.’

‘Not surprised, stuck up here on your own. Where’s your husband?’

‘Down the garden showing off his raspberry canes. Have I made a mistake?’

‘Yes. All marriage is a mistake. Just do the best you can.’

‘We’ve . . . we’ve never been close, you and I, Judy. Do you think we ever will be?’

Judith shrugged. ‘Hard to say. I’ll probably buzz around the world soon, exchanges and so on. I’m trying to get into Russia – that’s a fabulous language, Kate.’

‘I know. Is that the one you learned in three months?’

‘Don’t be silly, that was Swedish.’

Kate stared down on to the top of her husband’s head as he bent to display some strawberries. ‘He’s got a bald spot,’ she said to herself. ‘It isn’t getting in that will be a problem. It’s getting out.’

Judith smiled grimly. ‘Do you mean marriage or Russia or both?’

‘I’m not sure. I do love him, Ju. I really do love him.’

‘Then why do you have to keep saying it? Look, like I said before, just make the best of things. He’s not an ogre, though his mother does a fair imitation. With any luck, she’ll perish soon of one of her illnesses – that’s quite a list she was reading out downstairs. Did you know she has them all written out in capital letters? Just settle down, have a couple of kids.’

‘I’m probably already pregnant. No show at all this month.’

‘Great. Then he made an honest woman of you just in time.’

Kate turned from the window and studied her beautiful sister. ‘Will you ever get married?’

Judith tossed the long black curls. ‘No. I have lovers. Don’t look so shocked, it’s purely biological. I’ve had one Harley Street abortion already. No man is going to stand between me and the United Nations, Kate. A translator I am and a translator I intend to be. No nappies for me, love.’ In a rare display of affection, Judith threw an arm across her younger sister’s shoulder. ‘Terrified, aren’t you?’