The River Flows On (41 page)

Kate’s shoulders slumped. It was all her fault. She had set her sister a bad example. Robbie was quite right: Pearl was following in her footsteps. Only she was going a lot further down that road. Pearl stood up and came round the table, sliding an arm around her older sister’s shoulders.

‘I was always the wild one, Kate - you know that. It’s no’ your fault that I’ve gone bad.’

‘Och, Pearl!’ Turning, she threw her arms about her sister. Pearl patted her on the shoulder.

‘We’ve had some good laughs together though, haven’t we?’ Kate nodded her head in agreement.

‘And,’ Pearl added softly. ‘Robbie’ll come back to you. I’m sure he will.’

He did come back - but not for long. It was seven o’clock that evening, on the day which was proving to be the longest of Kate’s life. He dropped his bombshell as soon as he came into the house. He had been to the Pool - the Merchant Navy labour exchange up in Glasgow - had just made it before they closed for the day, and he had signed on for a trip aboard the
SS Border Reiver
, leaving the Clyde in two days’ time for coastal trading on the other side of the Atlantic. Their carpenter had been taken off the ship with acute appendicitis, so Robbie’s arrival couldn’t have come at a better time. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be away - maybe a year.

Open-mouthed, Kate stared at him. A year! He had brought a kitbag home with him and he began now to pack it with various bits and pieces: shirts, socks and underwear; his razor and shaving brush; two or three books. From a little cupboard above the box bed he took out a buff-coloured folder which seemed to contain several sheets of paper. Kate had never seen it before, but her attention left it when Robbie came over to where she sat and took an old envelope out of his inside pocket, setting it down on the table in front of her.

‘I’m taking some of the emergency fund but I’ve made an arrangement for you to get money while I’m away.’

He was being very matter-of-fact, but the finger with which he pointed to the scrap of paper he had laid on the table wasn’t quite steady. ‘If you go and see the company I’ve signed on with - that’s the address - they’ll tell you how it works.’

Kate swallowed. ‘I don’t want to take your money.’

He shrugged. ‘Why not? You’ve taken much more from me.’ He turned away from her, and she had to strain to make out the words. ‘My pride for a start ... and my manhood.’

Kate, her elbows on the table and her fingers interlaced with her hair, felt her heart turn over at those quietly uttered words. Was there no way she could get through to him? Tell him how much she loved him? Beg him to forgive her? His packing completed, he was standing staring out of the window again, his back to her. She stood up, her chair scraping on the floor. He turned at the noise, but the expression on his face was anything but welcoming. His features were set in forbidding lines. It was a mask, she knew - knew also how much pain it must be concealing.

Her throat ached. She yearned to open her arms to him, to draw his head down onto her breast. She knew she had forfeited the right to offer him any comfort by her betrayal of him. Yet she must try, all the same. She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye.

‘I-I know you maybe won’t believe this, but I really love you...and I’m so sorry.’

‘Sorry that I found out?’

She was too honest to deny it. She dropped her eyes before the reproach she saw in his.

‘You’ll need money,’ he said a few moments later. ‘I doubt you’ll be working for Marjorie any more. Especially not after I gave her husband a black eye.’

‘You hit him?’ Her voice rose in disbelief.

‘Aye, I thumped him one.’ A note of grim satisfaction crept into the carefully neutral voice.

She shook her head. She had thought him the most peaceable man in the world. In a society where male aggression too frequently spilled over into violence, Robert Baxter had always seemed to Kate the last person to use his fists to resolve an argument.

‘I’ll be off, then,’ he said at last.

They couldn’t part like this. Casting around for something - anything - to delay him, she pointed at the folder lying on the table. ‘You’ve forgotten that. Whatever it is.’

He went over to the table, flipped the folder open and took out the pages lying loose inside it. He held them in his hand for a moment. Then, with a quick movement, he screwed them up, twisted them and tossed them onto the range fire. The papers flared up brightly and he grabbed the long poker from its hook to hold them down and stop them falling onto the hearth rug. The white sheets twisted and uncurled as they burned. Standing beside the range, Kate could make out a few words on the top page.
To my Emerald-Eyed Kate
. She looked up at him.

‘Poems.’ he whispered. ‘Mainly about you.’

Looking away from her, he stabbed viciously at the papers, holding them till they were burnt to blackened fragments. She hadn’t thought it was possible for her heart to ache any more than it already did. She’d been wrong.

The destruction complete, he hung the poker back on its hook, and made once more as if to go.

‘I thought your ship didn’t sail for two days.’

‘I can’t stay here with you.’ He drew his breath in. ‘At this precise moment I don’t know if I ever want to see you again.’

She flinched visibly, and thought she saw an answering reaction in his eyes. For his sake, for both their sakes, she had to stop him leaving, make him stay here and listen to her side of the story. Clutching at straws, she blurted out a protest he clearly thought unworthy of her, his eyes narrowing in disdain as she said the words.

‘If you go to your Ma’s she’ll know that something’s up.’

‘I’m not going to my mother’s.’

The mask, which had seemed to slip for a few seconds, was firmly back in place. Yet she couldn’t give him up without a fight, she couldn’t! Then it came to her. The wonderful news Dr MacMillan had given her today. Why, she had almost forgotten it! She closed the distance between them, reaching out to grip Robbie’s arm. She could feel the warmth of it through the rough cloth of his jacket.

‘You can’t go now. I went to see the doctor today.’ She tried to smile. ‘Robbie, we’re going to have a baby.’

‘Really? Do you tell me that, Kate?’ It was the first time he had used her name during this whole terrible afternoon and evening.’ We’re going to have a baby? How nice. Are you sure it isn’t another of Drummond’s bastards you were planning to foist off on me?’

Kate Baxter lifted her hand from his sleeve, drew her arm back as far as it would go, and slapped her husband’s face. The force of the blow sent him half a step backwards, but he kept his balance - and his equilibrium. Kate looked at the red mark she had raised on his cheek, horrified at what she had done.

He lifted the kitbag and slung it over his shoulder.

‘I’ll let you know where I am. Or maybe I’ll not.’

Why had he said that to her? It was unforgivable, he knew that. He had absolutely no doubt that the child she was carrying was his. There had been so many joyful nights of love and passion. Or so he had thought. All a sham - all a bloody sham.

What she had done to him was unforgivable too. He’d never been in any doubt about Grace either. Until today. His mind was filled with images of his beautiful wee daughter - so bonnie, so clever, so loving. Her voice was ringing in his ears.
Daddy, Daddy! Lift me up. Daddy!
A single tear rolled down his cheek. He wasn’t her Daddy at all. He gave an inarticulate sob and grasped the railing which separated the path from the river.

He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. His little family had been the centre of his universe. More fool him. He had been an idiot - a blind, lovesick idiot. Now he saw his life for what it was - based on a lie.

He stood staring out at the Clyde, by the rowan tree where he had so often talked with her. He couldn’t say her name. He couldn’t even think it. Yet he knew very well why he had come to this place - to deliberately torture himself, to claw at the wound - to punish himself for living in a fool’s paradise.

He had known, somewhere within himself, that she had married him on the rebound from Jack Drummond. But he had allowed himself to hope ... and he had never dreamt she would have let that bastard do what he had done to her.

He gripped the railing even more tightly. His all too vivid imagination was torturing him with pictures of her with Drummond. He could see him kissing her, touching her, making love to her ... He let out another sob and swayed wildly, anchored only by the vice-like grip he kept on the railing.

Maybe he should just slide into the river. Throw his arms above his head and let the water close over his face. Then she’d be sorry. Would she?

He shivered violently. It was raining heavily now and two droplets of water had just run down the back of his neck. He didn’t bother turning the collar of his threadbare jacket up against it. Let it rain, let it fucking pour. He lifted his face to it, letting the water soak him, wondering if that’s what it would feel like to give himself up to the Clyde. He never knew what stopped him from doing it.

The Frenchwoman didn’t look surprised to see him, or the state he was in, but then he supposed in her business it didn’t do to show surprise. She opened the door a little wider and murmured his name in her soft accent.

‘You have not come to cause more trouble?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No.’ He shook his head, scattering water to both sides.

‘Bah!’ she said. ‘You are like a dog which has been swimming. Come in, straight away. Vite! She grabbed his arm, wrinkling her nose at the feel of the wet cloth, and pulled him into the flat.

‘I’ve got money,’ he said, leaning against the door, now closed behind him, his wet head tilted back against the smooth wood. ‘I can pay.’

‘You do not need money. Not tonight.’ She clicked her fingers and Marie-Louise, the red-haired girl, came forward from a shadowy corner of the hall. Her face was full of sympathy and the accent she used to speak to him was their own.

‘Ye cannae find it in your heart to forgive her?’

‘I cannae find it in my heart to forgive her.’ He got the words out, like a child repeating a lesson. Then he bit down furiously on his bottom lip. Marie-Louise made a tutting noise, lifted her hand to his face and traced the line of his lips.

‘Don’t do that. You’ve got a nice mouth.’ She took a step back and held out her hand to him. ‘Come wi’ me,’ she said. ‘First we’ll get you out of these wet clothes. After that I’ll make you forget all your troubles. Come on, now.’

Robert Baxter looked down at her for a long moment. Then he let out a sigh, pushed himself off the door, and put his hand in hers. She led him to her bedroom as though he were a lost child.

Chapter 27

Without Grace, Kate knew she would have crawled into the box bed, drawn the curtains and cried for days. Only because she had to care for the little girl did she keep functioning: cooking, cleaning and washing as usual. As it was, she confined her weeping to the long and lonely nights, sobbing quietly so as not to disturb the child in her little hurly bed on the other side of the curtains.

She went to bed every night at the usual time, but she slept little. At first she just lay, curled up in pain, holding on to a pillow - his pillow. She put off washing the pillowcase for weeks because there clung to it, very faintly, the scent of his skin.

Then the thoughts began to torment her; guilt and remorse; an aching for Robbie and the hurt she had inflicted on him; and finally pain for herself. Would he ever come back? Or find it in his heart to forgive her? How could he? She had done the unforgivable.

It was hard too when she had to listen to everyone else expressing surprise at Robbie’s sudden departure, even although, in the midst of his own hurt and anger, he had tried to put them off the scent.

‘Robbie said the two of you had been planning this for a while, Kate,’ said Agnes Baxter, looking anxiously at her daughter-in-law. She was worried about her. The lassie was looking pale and drawn.