The Oyster Catchers (31 page)

There were so many little tasks that she would have to master, she realized with a sickening lurch of uncertainty. Could she cope with Joe’s needs and with a job? In that moment of almost blind panic, she doubted it.

There was a sudden sound of voices as some of the neighbours came to welcome Joe home. Eline let them in and they crowded around Joe, wishing him well. He smiled and nodded though he spoke little and all the time Eline could see that the strain was telling on him.

‘I think it’s time Joe had a little rest now,’ she said at last and Carys was the first to nod her head approvingly.

‘Aye, Eline is right,’ she raised her voice, ‘come on friends, give the man a chance, is it?’

The well-meaning visitors began to disperse and Sam Morgan was the last to leave.

‘I’ll take the van back, shall I?’ he asked and Eline nodded in gratitude.

‘If you can spare the time, Sam, it would be a great help,’ she said, ‘and give our thanks to Will – Mr Davies, won’t you?’

‘I’ll do that.’ He left the house and led the horse towards the roadway and Eline watched until the clip-clop of the animal’s hoofs faded into silence.

Glancing across the street, Eline caught a glimpse of Nina Parks, hugging her shawl around her shoulders. There was something in the woman’s eyes that Eline didn’t understand and in a sudden spurt of anger, Eline slammed the door shut.

‘Well, Joe,’ she said brightly, ‘glad to be home, are you, love?’

‘Don’t talk daft, woman,’ Joe said sourly. ‘Why should I be glad about anything when I’m lying here on my back unable to move? Unfeeling as the planks on a deck you are.’

Eline took a deep breath, she had not expected gratitude, neither had she expected this blast of criticism. She was doing all she could for Joe and that was a fat lot more than Nina Parks was doing.

‘Are you hungry?’ She forced herself to speak pleasantly. ‘I’ve got some soup ready, nice and thin it is with carrots and parsnips and …’

‘For God’s sake shut up, woman!’ Joe said irritably, ‘I don’t want you blathering on, treating me like a child or an idiot. If I’m hungry I’ve got a tongue in my head, I’ll ask, right?’

‘Right, Joe.’ Eline felt her patience slipping but she tried again. ‘I hope the journey home wasn’t too awful for you.’

‘You had to go and get
his
van, didn’t you?’ Joe said sharply. ‘Rubbing it in that you got Will Davies breathing all over you just waiting to get his hands on you. Well, you needn’t think you are going to carry on working for him because you’re not, understand?’

Eline drew a chair up beside the bed and took one of Joe’s calloused hands in hers. ‘Listen to me, love,’ she said and her tone was gentle but firm. ‘Let there be no lies between us, we’ll start as we mean to go on.’

‘Oh aye, going to tell me how lucky I am now that you are standing by me, is that it?’ Joe turned his face away from her.

‘I’m going to tell you the facts of our life together as I see them,’ Eline said. ‘You can like it or lump it but I’ve got to work, otherwise we’ll starve. No one but Will Davies has offered me a job and in any case it wouldn’t be convenient for me to work anywhere else.’

‘Well, you would say that,’ Joe growled. ‘Could clean and cook in one of the big houses, couldn’t you?’

‘And live in?’ Eline asked. ‘Who would look after you then? As it is, I am only a few hundred yards away down the road, I can come home and give you food at dinner
time and when the shop closes, I’ll be home in just a few minutes.’

‘So, I’m to stay alone all day?’ Joe’s voice faltered and Eline felt pity for her husband sweep over her. It occurred to her suddenly that Joe was afraid of being alone.

‘No love, not alone, not entirely anyway. Carys is going to pop in from time to time make sure you’re all right.’ She rose and moved away from the bed wondering if she had the strength to carry on with what seemed such a grinding, difficult routine. Every day would be the same; she would spend her days in the shop and her evenings cleaning the house and washing Joe’s sheets. She squared her shoulders.

‘It’s the best I can do, Joe.’ Her voice quivered in spite of herself and she bit her lip not wanting Joe to realize how very frightened she was, too.

‘We’ll work it out,
cariad
.’ His voice was softer now, less hostile. ‘Give it time and I’ll be on my feet again, you’ll see.’

Eline doubted that; the doctors had not been at all optimistic about a recovery but then doctors could be wrong and in any case she couldn’t take away Joe’s feelings of hope.

Eline slept badly that night. She had made up her bed in the spare room away from the sounds of the roadway. And yet she was tense, listening for any signs of restlessness from Joe and, when she did sleep, nightmares haunted her.

She woke unrefreshed and heavy-eyed and as she made her way downstairs, she tried her best to feel cheerful for Joe’s sake. She would light the fire, make his breakfast and then get off to work. The thought of work and Will had the effect of lightening her spirits so that when Eline went into the parlour she could smile with genuine good humour.

Joe, however, was not smiling. ‘Get me to the privvy,
for God’s sake.’ The words harshly spoken greeted Eline and blushing, she realized that her husband’s needs were going to be of a far more intimate nature than she’d anticipated. It was impossible, she would never get Joe out to the back where the privvy stood, she would have to carry him bodily and she simply wasn’t capable of such a feat.

She stood for a moment in bleak despair, wondering if she should go next door and ask for Sam Morgan’s help but would Joe put up with the lack of privacy that bringing in the neighbours would entail?

She glanced around her in panic and then her eyes lit upon the old, dusty commode that had stood in the corner of the parlour for years, looking as innocent as an ordinary chair.

‘I’ll fetch the commode,’ she said with relief and hurriedly dragged the heavy chair nearer to the bed. She lifted the seat to reveal the old chamber-pot, which had never been used as far as Eline knew unless by Joe’s long-dead parents.

The effort of getting him out of bed was almost beyond her; Eline caught Joe around the waist and half-lifted, half-pulled him into place on the commode.

She turned her face away from him, knowing how awful he must feel.

‘Christ!’ he said bitterly. ‘I’m a grown man and I am to live my life as a child. I’m to be fed and potted and washed and dried – I might as well be dead.’

‘Don’t say that, Joe.’ Eline saw to him with as little fuss as possible. At last, making sure Joe was comfortable, she took the chamber-pot outside.

Later, when she had lit the fire, she cooked Joe a breakfast of bacon and eggs and set it on a tray with a fresh pot of tea on the side.

‘I’ve got to get off to work now, Joe,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll be back at dinner time and Carys will be in later to see if you want anything.’

Joe didn’t reply, he turned his back to her and after a moment, Eline left the house. As she walked along the road she was already bone weary; lack of sleep and the sheer hard effort of lifting Joe had made her spirits sink to an all-time low. How could she go on living such an existence? It surely was asking too much of her.

At the door of the boot and shoe store, she turned and looked back along the roadway, her hand to her throat, her heart beating swiftly. Someone was entering the house, a woman and from where she was standing, Eline had the definite impression that the woman was Nina Parks.

Nina Parks walked right into Joe’s house without hesitating; she didn’t feel like an intruder, after all, she had lived there as mistress for some time, it was her home too. And in any case, the time had come for her to make amends with Joe for deserting him when he needed her. She must look after Joe, see to his bodily needs, it was her duty. His wife had gone out and left him alone, hadn’t she? Eline didn’t give a fig for Joe’s comfort or his state of mind.

She had watched from her window as Eline passed on her way to work in Will Davies’s shop and bitterness overwhelmed her. Nina had had everything in the palm of her hand and now she had given Joe back to his dear little wife. Well, Eline would have no chance to deny her, everything would be settled before Eline came home, Nina would be back in her rightful place once more.

Nina stood beside Joe’s bed and smiled down at him, affection rising within her for the man he had once been. It hurt her to see him brought low, like a wounded animal, earthbound and with much of the spirit knocked out of him.

‘Hallo, love,’ she said, rolling up her sleeves, ‘I’ve come to help out.’

Joe glowered at her. ‘So you’ve come, have you? How good of you.’

‘Don’t be like that, Joe.’ Nina knelt beside him. ‘I know I should never have gone away from here but I thought it was what you and
she
wanted.’

‘Is that why you never came to see me in the hospital?’ he demanded angrily.

‘I’m sorry about that, Joe, but I’m not your wife, mind, I had no rights to come to the hospital to see you, they all made sure I knew that, too.’

‘Who do you mean by “they”?’ Joe asked and Nina shrugged. ‘A lot of the villagers, Eline herself, you know how it is, Joe. Anyway, I’m here now, now that
she
is out of the way. Come on, what would you like me to do, give you a lovely wash down first, is it?’

Joe’s relief at Nina’s presence overcame his bad humour and she could see that he was glad that she’d come.

‘Aye, whatever you like.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been going mad lying here thinking all sorts of thoughts. I don’t want to be alone all day and every day, that’s no sort of life for any man, I’d rather be out of it.’

‘And what do you mean by that sort of nonsense?’ But Nina knew Joe, lying abed helpless and hopeless was not for him. He would want watching, otherwise he would be tempted to find a way out of his pain, for good.

‘Well, never mind all that, you are here now,’ Joe said. ‘I can bear it so long as I’m not alone.’

‘That’s right, cheer up, show the guts you’ve always shown,’ Nina replied and there was a break in her voice. She made an effort to gain control of herself before she spoke again.

‘I’ve brought some nice chicken for you,’ Nina said changing the subject. ‘Cooked it already I have, I’ll soon knock up a lovely crusty pie, you’ll see.’

Nina went to the pantry and brought out some flour, she knew just where to put her hand on things. Wasn’t this her kitchen more than it had ever been Eline’s?

‘I’ll make you a nice meat pie for your supper,’ she called through to the parlour, banging the rolling-pin against the scrubbed table-top in the kitchen. ‘I know just how you like it, Joe, and as for your Eline, she will have to like it or lump it.’

She was setting out the rules; Nina was telling Joe that
she was here to help but not to take second place to his wife. Nina would come and go as it pleased her.

Joe understood her and swallowed his disappointment. He could do with Nina around him all the time now, a grown woman who knew how to nurse a man not a young untried girl who put her work first. It was as though Nina, wise as usual, read his thoughts. ‘Got some guts that wife of yours,’ she smiled to herself as she rubbed the fat into the flour, ‘got herself a job, didn’t she?’

‘How come you are so nice about Eline, all of a sudden?’ Joe’s voice drifted to where Nina worked at the dough, moulding it with strong fingers.

‘I don’t say I like her taking over here, Joe,’ Nina spoke bitterly, ‘but she can earn money to keep you and it seems I can’t. Tried for work on the perches I have, but no one wants me, see. Too old I spects.’

She lined the enamel dish with pastry and placed the chicken pieces inside. Deftly, Nina made a gravy from onions and chicken fat and added it to the meat. Lastly, she placed a funnel in the middle of the meat and covered the dish with a pastry cap.

‘I’ll just brush this over with some milk,’ she called, ‘then how about a nice cup of tea, Joe?’

She was sitting down beside his bed sipping from one of the cups she herself had brought to Joe’s house when the door was pushed open and Carys Morgan came into the parlour, a look of surprise crossing her plump, good-natured face.

Nina smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry, Carys, I’m not here to cause mischief, I’m going to help out all I can until Joe is better, I owe him that much.’

Carys rubbed her hands on her apron. ‘I was just going to make a cup of tea, the baby is fast asleep and I’ve got a spare few minutes. Promised Eline I did that I’d watch out for Joe, see?’

‘No need,’ Nina said positively, ‘I know you’re busy
what with your baby and your own house to keep, I’ll talk to Eline when she gets home, she’ll be right glad that I’m able to help, you’ll see.’

‘I’m glad enough of the company, mind,’ Joe spoke for the first time. ‘I know you’re a good neighbour, Carys, but I’ll go mad if I’m alone most of the day, you can see that, can’t you?’

‘Aye, I can see that,’ Carys said. ‘But will Eline see it that way?’ Carys had clearly made up her mind to speak bluntly. ‘Nina has been living with you, sharing your bed, isn’t it going to be hard for Eline to have her here now taking charge of things?’

‘We’ll see about it when she comes home from work,’ Nina said soothingly. ‘And if she don’t like it, I’ll go away and leave her be.’

‘Right then,’ Carys retorted stiffly, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She went out and Nina grimaced at Joe. ‘Don’t approve, does she?’ she smiled. ‘Neither will Eline at first but I’m sure she’ll see the sense of it after a bit of thought.’

Joe’s eyes were closing in weariness and Nina took the cup away from his big, clumsy hands.

‘Have a sleep, you, I’ll peel a few potatoes and then see what green vegetables you got here.’

‘Nina,’ Joe’s voice stopped her as she made to leave the room, ‘if it gets too much for you, looking after me, you’ll help me out of my misery, won’t you? You know what I mean.’

Nina knew exactly what he meant and after a moment, she replied, ‘No need for any of that talk, I’m going to do my best to make you better, Joe, but I give you my word that if I can’t make you better I’ll help you out.’