Secrets to Keep (17 page)

Colleen’s widowed mother’s arthritic hands were already full looking after her three boisterous under-school age kids while she was at work, let alone a baby on top of that. Colleen had no choice but to work as her husband didn’t earn much from his semi-skilled job for an engineering company, and there were rumours going around already that due to the dreadful recession the order books were about empty, no new ones in the offing, and very soon it looked as if workers would be laid off there. Colleen lay awake at night praying her husband wouldn’t be one of them and that she herself wasn’t pregnant.

Now Aidy shook her head. ‘I don’t want the news about me and Arch becoming common knowledge yet, Col. I just couldn’t cope with the gossip. You haven’t told anyone, have you?’

‘No, ’course not. You know your secrets are safe with me. Always have been, ever since we’ve known each other. You’re lucky to have kept it quiet this long, though, Aidy. I’m surprised no one who knows you both has asked why you’re living in separate houses.’

‘I can’t speak for Arch, of course, but in my case it’s because I’ve fobbed off busybodies who’ve asked me by saying that it’s just a temporary situation, while we sort out matters after my mam’s death.’

Colleen looked genuinely aggrieved when she said, ‘It’s such a shame about you and Arch. If ever I thought a couple would last forever, it was you two. Never argued like me and my old man do, constantly, about anything. Got no kids driving yer both crazy, and the worry of … well, you know … what I’m worrying about might be on the way, and that yer old man might be in line for losing his job.’

Aidy sighed. ‘Could you forget and forgive Bernie for wanting to hand your defenceless family over to the care of their bastard of a father, subject them to lives of purgatory, just to save himself the bother?’

‘Listen here, gel. I could forgive anything from my old man sooner than him put me in the position you’re in. Having the worries you’re having to cope with …’

‘Well, I’d sooner have those worries, Col, and know
my family are happy. And I’ll have more to worry about if I don’t get back to work! Hardwick has just given me my last warning and I know she meant business.’

Try as she might, though, after the mention of him, Aidy couldn’t get Arch from her mind. Their marriage was over and she had been the one to end it because she had discovered traits in his character she could not live with, but that didn’t mean she was over the man she had known before that side of him had shown itself to her. It would all take time. In a way, it was a good thing she had so much else to keep her mind occupied or the loss of him would have overwhelmed her.

The time until dinner hour seemed to drag on, and by the time it came Aidy still hadn’t caught up with her quota. It was a hot August day, a relentless sun blazing down from a cloudless sky, and the stuffy, airless atmosphere inside the factory had done nothing to boost her energy levels. In fact, it did the opposite, made her more tired and listless. She prayed the fresh air she’d get while she raced around completing her dinner-hour tasks would help to blow away at least some of her fatigue and she’d manage to put in a better performance this afternoon. She would try and get to bed earlier tonight, hope for once she had a good sleep, wake refreshed, and for the first time since she had
returned to work after her mother died, achieve what was expected of her. She had to. Her forewoman had left her in no doubt what would happen to her if she didn’t.

Aidy had no grocery shopping to do today as Betty was under instructions to collect fresh milk from the local shop on returning home from school. For dinner that evening they were having vegetable soup and bread. The soup just needed heating. Making her own bread each evening for next day was hard work and time-consuming, but cheaper than buying shop-bought. But having no shopping to do and nothing to prepare towards the evening meal did not mean Aidy was free. She still had to go home and check on Bertha. Although neighbours and friends dropped in to see her, time permitting, her gran so looked forward to Aidy’s visit home, for a quick cuppa and a chat to help break the monotony.

For Bertha the time couldn’t come quick enough when the doctor pronounced her broken bones healed and removed the itchy, cumbersome plaster casts. She had always been so active, and this incarceration, day after day, was very testing for her although she did her best to keep her spirits up. Aidy was well aware of it too. Despite her continually assuring her grandmother that she was managing just fine, Bertha was deeply grieved by the fact that she was unable to ease her granddaughter’s burden, either
in the house or financially by selling her remedies. Day by day, she could see Aidy’s strength and optimism dwindling.

To Aidy’s surprise, Bertha was fast asleep when she arrived. As there was evidence of several visitors during the morning judging by the dirty cups they’d left, obviously she’d been tired out by them. At least Aidy knew that her grandmother hadn’t been on her own all morning. She would mash herself a cuppa and drink it while she ate a quick sandwich, hoping Bertha would rouse herself before she had to return to work so that Aidy could tend to her personal needs.

Bertha was still snoring softly when, armed with her cup of tea and a plate holding a cheese sandwich, Aidy gave a blissful sigh as she sank down in the shabby armchair by the range. It felt like paradise to her to have a few minutes’ peaceful relaxation before she returned to the hurly-burly of the factory. After she’d eaten her sandwich and drunk her tea Bertha still had not woken and she had ten minutes to go before she had to return to work. How vehemently she wished she hadn’t to go back; that she could sit here all afternoon and rest her weary body …

Aidy hadn’t realised she’d fallen into a deep slumber until a shrill scream jolted her awake. Sitting bolt upright, she stared around, dazed and confused,
fighting to comprehend where she was. Then her eyes fell on her grandmother, in a heap on the floor nearby.

As she jumped up and ran to Bertha she cried out, ‘Oh, my God, Gran! What …’ She crouched down beside her, checking her over. She didn’t need to ask if her gran was in pain. The look on her face and the fact that she couldn’t speak revealed that this was serious. Aidy didn’t like the fact that the plaster cast encasing Bertha’s broken leg had split open and the part of it visible inside was swelling like a balloon. What on earth had caused this? She wondered. But the answer would have to wait. Bertha needed medical help, and swiftly.

Gently placing a cushion under the old woman’s head and covering her with a blanket, Aidy ordered her not to move and informed her she’d be back as quickly as she could with the doctor.

She was so consumed by the need to get help for her grandmother, it never registered with Aidy that she should have been back at work, labouring away at her machine, over an hour ago.

Ty was in his kitchen, about to take a much-needed sandwich and cup of tea into the dining room, to eat sitting in one of the unyielding chairs at the table. Secretly he would have liked to have taken his meal into the lounge, sitting in the scuffed but comfortable leather wing-backed armchair. He could have
done with the relaxation. But his upbringing dictated he should eat at the table, despite there being no strict parents or formidable nanny around now to make him adhere to their standards.

Ty wasn’t in the best of moods, having been dragged out of bed at four-thirty that morning. He’d been summoned by the extremely anxious works manager of a local factory whose wife was expecting her first baby at the age of forty-three. The husband did not trust a midwife to see to her in case of complications due to his wife’s age, and was insisting Ty himself oversee the birth.

From the symptoms the man blurted out to him, Ty knew that the patient, who had still three weeks to go before her due date, was just experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions, but the man made it plain he wasn’t going to be placated by Ty’s verbal diagnosis, he wanted a visit. The good thing was that Ty would be guaranteed payment for this home visit through the works remuneration scheme which covered this family. It was as he suspected, the woman had just been suffering testing pains, but by the time Ty had got back home, it hadn’t been worth returning to bed so he’d used the time to catch up with some paperwork.

Morning surgery had been busy and had overrun by three quarters of an hour. He’d been late starting his morning round in the area, which then resulted
in his overrunning by forty minutes. He was left with just twenty minutes to make and eat his lunch before going out again on his afternoon round. So a sudden hammering on the surgery door had him exclaiming in exasperation: ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Do people around here not think their doctor deserves any time to eat his lunch?’

It was on his mind to ignore the summons, pretend he wasn’t at home, but the continual urgent thumping on the door had him slamming down his plate and cup of tea, slopping the contents over the table, and shouting out angrily, ‘Hold on, I’m just coming.’

He glared in annoyance when he saw the intruder. What was it with this woman that each time she called upon him she was in a state of hysteria, demanding his immediate attention on a matter of life or death? He supposed in fairness the first time she had called him it had in fact been a matter of death, and the second had been a matter of some urgency. Surely, though, the odds were against her having a third emergency so soon? Before he could enquire the reason for her visit, she cried out, ‘You’ve got to come quick, Doc, it’s me gran.’

Once again he informed Aidy, ‘It’s Doctor Strathmore. Now, can whatever it is your grandmother needs to see me about wait until I’ve at least eaten my lunch?’

‘No, it can’t! She’s had a fall. It’s her leg … The one she broke a few weeks ago … well, I think she’s damaged it again. She’s in that much pain, she can’t speak.’ Aidy grabbed his arm, gripping it tightly. ‘You’ve got to come
now
,’ she insisted.

He wasn’t amused by her manhandling of him or the tone of voice she’d used to get across her point. Wrenching himself free from her grip, he snapped, ‘I’ll get my bag then.’

It transpired that Bertha had re-broken her leg. Through her pain, she managed to tell Ty that she’d decided after five weeks of being driven to despair, lying on the sofa, that surely it would have healed by now … Well, Maisie Turnbull’s young son’s broken leg had only taken five weeks to heal. Her leg should have been fine by now … Only for her to discover it wasn’t.

Ty had been very brusque in his response. He hadn’t ordered complete bed rest for seven weeks for the fun of it, he pointed out. Old broken bones took longer to heal than younger ones. Now she would pay for not adhering to his explicit instructions by another seven weeks of complete rest and, as he’d instructed before, he would examine her to check the bone had healed before she risked putting even gentle pressure on it.

Although she hadn’t been alone as yet with her
grandmother, Aidy knew that the explanation she had given the doctor for how she had come to rebreak her leg was a complete lie. The truth of the matter was that she had been trying to wake Aidy up. Obviously shouting at her hadn’t done the trick, so deeply had she been sleeping, and Bertha’s only other option was to shake her awake.

Having shown Ty out, with a promise to settle up his mounting bill as soon as she could, Aidy returned to the back room to study her grandmother’s condition. As if the last episode hadn’t taken toll enough on her, this one had left her seriously depleted. Before Pat’s attack on her, Bertha’s age might have slowed her down a bit, she might not have been able to carry heavy loads any longer, but she’d still been very agile for a woman in her late sixties. Now she looked so old and frail … Aidy just hoped this was only temporary and once she’d recovered, Bertha would return to her old self.

‘Can I get you anything, Gran?’ she asked.

The further fracture had been so excruciating that Bertha had resorted to accepting the morphine tablet the doctor had offered her … but only half of it. She was therefore feeling a little dopey, as if she’d downed a couple of large schooners of good quality sherry, but the medicine had at least eradicated her pain sufficiently to let the doctor re-set and re-plaster her leg and it was still working its magic.
All she was feeling from her injury at the moment was a bearable dull throb. Once the effects of the pill wore off, though, she was adamant that her own pain-killing remedy would see her through from now on.

In a laboured voice, she responded, ‘No, thanks, lovey. I just want to sleep now.’

Aidy leaned down to peck her cheek then whispered, ‘This is all my fault and I’m so sorry, Gran. I know you lied to the Doc. You weren’t disobeying his orders at all. You were trying to wake me up because I was late back for work, weren’t you?’

Drowsily she answered, ‘When I woke up and saw you fast off in the chair, then noticed the time, I was worried you’d be in trouble. I did me best to shout you awake but I just couldn’t … I didn’t want to tell the doctor what really happened and make you look bad, a young woman of your age, sleeping the afternoon away …’

Aidy wasn’t listening to her. The mention of work had sent a wave of sheer panic rushing through her.

‘Oh, Gran, I’ve got to go! I should be at work. Will you be …’

Despite her own drug-induced state, Bertha knew why Aidy was concerned. ‘Just go, love. I’ll be fine. And stop worrying. Yer boss’ll be understanding when you tell ’em yer old gran had an accident and you had to get the doctor to her.’

Aidy just had to pray she would be.

Having run all the way back to work, her lungs felt like they were on fire and she was gasping for breath by the time she slipped through the gates, dashed over the yard and sneaked her way round to her own department. Stopping for a moment outside the door to the workroom, she tried to compose herself then walked inside as if she had just slipped out for a moment.