The River Flows On (27 page)

Suzanne had broken it a bit brutally, but it was true. He had to marry Marjorie Donaldson, had no choice really. Of course Kate hadn’t just been an amusement! She knew what a bitch Suzanne was. How could Kate think he thought of her like that? She was special - his little Clydebank girl - and he loved her. Hadn’t Sunday afternoon proved that?

‘People who love each other get married,’ sobbed Kate, laying her head on his shoulder. ‘People who make love to each other get married.’

‘Oh, Kate,’ said Jack Drummond, his arm around her. ‘What would we live on?’

‘You could get a job, a different job, You’re clever - there’s lots of things you could do. You could train to be an art teacher - you know a lot about that.’ She lifted her head and clutched at the lapel of his jacket. ‘I can wait to get married, I wouldn’t mind.’

He reached out and smoothed her hair. ‘You’re a sweet kid.’ He gave an odd little laugh. ‘It’s a lovely dream, but it just wouldn’t work, my pet. It really wouldn’t.’

‘But you don’t love Marjorie. That’s not fair to her either!’

Jack lifted Kate’s fingers from his jacket and sat up straight. ‘Don’t be silly, Kate. Love doesn’t have anything to do with marriage. Not for people like Marjorie and me, anyway.’

Dumbstruck, she stared at him. It was an echo of what Robbie had said to her last Saturday. She too straightened up, shrugging off the arm which lay loosely about her shoulders. They sat in silence for a few minutes. She found one last weapon. Surely, if he truly loved her, he wouldn’t be able to withstand it. Flushing a deep scarlet, she got it out.

‘What if I’m ... after Sunday. What if I get... well, you know what I mean.’

He shifted in his seat and coughed before he spoke. ‘There are people who get rid of mistakes, Kate.’ He turned to her and said quietly, ‘If you need the money for that, just let me know. I may be broke, but not that broke. Now I really think I should get you home.’ He started up the car.

When he pulled up at the kerb to let her out, two tram stops from home as usual, he reached over to kiss her, looking at her in surprise when she pulled back.

‘Goodbye, Jack. I’ll get the dress and the wrap cleaned and send them back to you.’ Her hand was on the door handle when his came over it, pulling her around, forcing her to look at him.

‘What are you talking about, Kate? What would I do with a frock? It’s yours.’

‘You:think I earned it, do you? Last Sunday afternoon?’

‘Kate - don’t talk like that.’ His eyes were searching her face.’Is this goodbye, then?’

She couldn’t speak, but she nodded. Despite her best efforts, two fat tears slid down her cheeks.

‘Won’t we see each other again?’

‘No.’ She managed the word and then had to clamp her mouth shut. Let me go, let me go, she was praying silently. Before I give in and agree to see you again - a man who’s going to marry my best friend.

This was the last time she would ever be close to him. He was so handsome, especially at this moment, looking at her with that peculiar expression on his face - a mixture of regret and affection and enquiry. She knew very well what the question was. She had grown up a lot since Sunday.

‘No,’ she said again.

‘It’s your choice then, Kate,’ he said softly. ‘Not mine. Remember that.’

She got out of the car and turned, taking one last look at him.

‘None of this was my choice, Jack. None of it.’

She walked away, determined not to look back. That was hard, especially when she heard no sound behind her of the car engine starting up. Was he waiting for her to change her mind? To run back to him? But the only thing he could offer was a clandestine affair which would betray Marjorie. She couldn’t do it. She just wasn’t made that way.

Lifting her chin, she quickened her pace. Behind her, she heard his car start up, turn and move away, back towards Glasgow. The sound grew fainter and fainter until she couldn’t hear it any more.

It must be nearly nine o’clock. How on earth was she going to explain away how late she was? As it turned out, she didn’t have to. As she came up to her own close, she saw Jessie. She smiled automatically as the girl ran up to her. Then she saw the expression on her sister’s face. She had been crying and her voice was high and frightened.

‘Kate, Kate, Barbara’s in the hospital! I think she’s real bad this time! Och, Kate, I don’t know what’s happening to her!’

All thought of her own predicament flew out of Kate’s head. She lifted her hands to grip her younger sister’s thin shoulders.

‘Jessie, it’s all right. Calm down, now. When did they take Barbara in?’

The answer didn’t matter at all, but it might just give Jessie’s mind something to fix on. Before the distressed girl had time to answer, however, Kate heard footsteps beating a rapid tattoo on the floor of the close. Agnes Baxter was the first to appear. Lily Cameron was beside her, her arm about her shoulders. As they emerged into the evening sunlight, followed by Jim Baxter, Lily saw Kate standing there. Her face cleared.

‘Agnes and Jim are going back up to the hospital,’ she burst out. ‘Robbie’s still there - he went in the ambulance with Barbara this morning. Agnes is worried about Flora and Alice, but I’ve told her we’ll look after them, won’t we, Kate?’

Kate wondered if anyone else could hear the note of entreaty in Lily’s voice, and it came to her that while her mother was doing her best to comfort Agnes Baxter, she herself was looking to Kate for support. It gave her a funny feeling in her chest, as though she wanted to burst into tears and smile at the same time.

‘Aye,’ said Kate, ‘of course we will. Don’t you worry about the girls, Mrs Baxter - or Andrew. We’ll look after them. Ma and me - and Jessie too.’ She patted her sister’s arm.

‘You’re a good lassie, Kate,’ said Agnes, and then could say no more. Biting her lip, her tired eyes shiny with unshed tears, she gripped the girl wordlessly by the hand. Jim Baxter shook his head at Kate.

‘Robbie’ll not leave her. He’s been there all day. I couldn’t get him to come home for a rest.’

‘You know Robbie, Mr Baxter,’ Kate tried to joke. ‘Stubborn as a mule.’

Jim’s smile flashed. ‘Aye, hen, you’re right there.’

They waited with the Baxters until the tram came, standing for a moment to watch it swaying along the road. There would be time enough for Robbie to rest, thought Kate as they made their way back to the house to offer what comfort they could to the Baxter children. Soon there would be more than enough time.

Barbara died just after midnight. Kate, head slumped on her arms at the kitchen table in the Baxters’ flat, was wakened by a light touch on her shoulder about an hour and a half later. It was her father. His face told her the news. Standing up, she stumbled into his arms, stupefied by tiredness and shock. Not grief. That would come later. And then not so much for herself as for the Baxters, and Jessie - and Robbie.

‘All right, lass?’ Neil whispered in her ear. ‘Bear up now, for their sakes. Will you make some tea?’

She nodded and moved out of his strong arms to head for the range. Behind him, letting themselves into the house, were Jim and Agnes, a white-faced Robbie following them. He looks so tall, Kate thought, still half-asleep, or is it that Jim and Agnes have shrunk?

Neil Cameron ushered all three Baxters to sit down at the table. Lily, who’d gone upstairs about eleven o’clock with a pale and tearful Jessie, had also slipped into the room. Her husband stood behind her chair, his tall figure oozing sympathy for the people who sat so quietly round the table. Kate, who’d had a kettle simmering since she’d helped put the Baxter children to bed, made the tea, moving about the kitchen to fetch cups and saucers, biscuits from Agnes’s tins, a plate to put them on, the stand for the teapot.

‘Thanks, Kate, hen,’ said Jim Baxter, as she set the table. Agnes stared fixedly at some point in the middle of the cloth, with eyes which saw nothing. When Kate brought over the teapot, Jim rose from his chair.

‘Here, lass, you’ll be needing a seat yourself.’

There was a squeaking noise as the chair opposite him was abruptly pushed back.

‘Kate can sit here. I’m going out.’ White-faced, swaying with tiredness, Robbie was on his feet.

‘Will you not have a cup of tea first, lad?’ Neil Cameron asked gently.

Robbie took a deep breath and said, ‘No,’ his voice rough and raw. Kate, watching the two men, saw a look pass between them.

‘Aye,’ said Neil Cameron, laying a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. ‘If that’s what you need to do, laddie.’

When he came back after closing the door behind Robbie, Kate, having poured out the tea and slid the tea cosy over the pot, walked round the table to him.

‘Should we have let him go, Daddy?’ Her gaze slid past her father’s head towards the door. ‘Maybe I should go after him.’

She bit her lip, undecided. He’d still be going down the stairs. She could catch up with him if she went now. If they hadn’t had that stupid quarrel last Saturday she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

‘Leave him be, lass.’ Kate pulled her gaze away from the door. ‘Sometimes a man needs to think things out on his own. He’ll be needing you later, I’m thinking.’

Kate looked up into her father’s face. His tired eyes were full of understanding.

‘Aye, Daddy,’ she agreed, her speech slurred with fatigue. She wasn’t at all convinced that he was right.

When Robert Baxter didn’t come home for breakfast, his mother began to get worried. When he didn’t come home for his dinner at midday, that worry began to cross the line into panic.

‘He was that fond of her,’ Agnes kept repeating. ‘I’m scared he’ll do something daft, I really am. He was in a real funny mood before all this happened anyway. He shouted at me on Saturday night, and he’s never done that before. Och, Lily, what if he does something stupid?’

Kate, woken from restless sleep at half-past eight as Lily tried in vain to comfort Agnes, who sat weeping noisily in the Camerons’ kitchen, felt torn in two that morning. She wished Jessie would cry too, but the girl sat still and pale, like a wee white ghost, obediently drinking a cup of tea and nibbling a piece of bread when Kate made her, but keeping her grief for the loss of her best friend locked up inside her. Only when Kate tried to leave her side did she make a little inarticulate sound and reach for her big sister’s hand, clutching it so tightly that both their palms became hot and slick with sweat.

How could she leave Jessie? How could she not go and look for Robbie? Aside from relieving his mother’s distress, it was Kate’s fault that he’d been in a real funny mood on Saturday. He had enormous stores of love and respect for his mother. If he’d been driven to shouting at her, that could only have been because of the quarrel he’d had with Kate - and her rejection of his proposal. What if he did do something stupid? A hundred times that morning, swimming in a river of tea as neighbours called past to offer sympathy, Kate ached to get up and go to him. Then she would look at Jessie’s face again, and stay where she was.

When young Dr MacMillan, calling by in the early afternoon to express his condolences, supplied the information that Robbie had apparently gone back to the hospital in the early hours, but had left the building about seven o’clock in the morning, Kate could stand the look on Agnes Baxter’s face no longer. Firmly pulling her hand out of Jessie’s grasp, she stood up and spoke quietly but decisively.

‘I’ll go and look for him, Mrs B,’ she said. ‘I think I might know where to find him.’

Jessie was looking up at her, a mute appeal in her eyes. Don’t leave me, Kate. Kate caught her father’s eye. He gave her a nod. Crossing the kitchen, he scooped Jessie up in his arms and sat down with her in the big armchair, cradling her with his work-roughened hands as he had done all of his children when they had been babies and toddlers.