The River Flows On (46 page)

There was no need to discuss where they were heading. As they turned down Yoker Ferry Road Robbie spoke, his tone of voice calm and level. ‘I think your father wants to rearrange my face.’

‘He doesn’t know,’ Kate put in. They walked on in silence for a few paces. ‘He doesn’t know what I ... what I did to you.’

She turned her face away, fixing her gaze on their surroundings, on the ferry and the river just coming into view, on anything but the face of the man walking beside her.

‘But he knows what I did to you.’

She looked at him then, but his eyes were fixed on the lights of Renfrew on the other side of the river. The ferry was chugging its way across.

‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed this river.’ His voice was soft in the darkness.

And me, she wanted to ask, have you missed me?

They walked together without touching, in step but a foot or more apart. She had dreamed so often of having him home, had rehearsed what she would say, how she would explain it all to him. Now that he was here she couldn’t seem to get a word out.

‘We’ll stop here.’ They were at the rowan tree.

She halted immediately and saw, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, that there was a faint smile on his face.

‘So obedient, aren’t you? Come out when I ask you to, stop when I tell you to.’

She didn’t know how to answer. He was so different from the Robert Baxter who had gone away nine months before. Oh, he looked more or less the same, but he had a different air to him somehow. He had acquired a polish, a sophistication. Was the real Robbie still there? Or was he buried so deep she was never going to be able to find him again? She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in the old, nervous gesture.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘You’re crying.’

It was a statement of fact. Nothing more. No sympathy in his tone. No attempt to take her in his arms.

‘I cried, you know.’ There was still no expression in his voice. ‘Down here. At this exact spot. The night we broke up.’

Kate found her voice at last. ‘Broke up? Is that how you see it?’

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘It was pouring with rain that night, do you remember?’

Yes, she remembered. She had cried too, had thrown herself across the box bed and cried until she had made herself sick. She could remember the rain beating against the window panes...

‘I stood here and cried and the rain ran down the back of my neck and I didn’t give a damn. Nothing mattered.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘I got cold eventually - freezing cold. I started thinking of where I could go to be warm. Somewhere dark and secret. I suppose I was like an animal crawling away to lick its wounds.’

‘Where
did
you go?’ she whispered.

He turned then and looked at her. Was there still a faint smile on his mouth? ‘I went back to where I had come from that day - where I had found out about you and Jack Drummond.’

Kate winced at that name - and at what came next.

‘The woman there let me in - I must have looked like a drowned rat - and one of her girls took me to her room ... and did what women in houses like that do best.’ He was smiling. If you could call it that.

‘I’ve learned to have great respect for women like her. I’ve done business with four or five of them since I’ve been away.’

‘Four or five?’ Kate’s mouth went dry.

Robbie’s smile broadened. ‘Well, on one occasion I was too drunk to know whether I had been capable of anything the night before.’

‘Drunk? You?’

‘Och, I thought I would try it. See if it helped.’ He paused, lifting his face to the night air. ‘Take my word for it, it doesn’t. Instead of just waking up miserable, you wake up miserable and with a thumping headache. I paid her though, it seemed the least I could do.’ The cool, detached voice went on. Relentless. Ignoring Kate’s growing distress. It’s a business transaction, after all, and I had taken up space in her bed. She was entitled to her money. That’s what I like about it. It’s a straightforward deal - no emotions involved.’

Kate could take no more. She let out a cry of  pain, like a small trapped animal in distress.

Robbie lowered his head and looked directly at her. ‘Hurts, does it?’ he enquired pleasantly. ‘Thinking of me with other women?’

Kate squeezed her eyes tight shut. Her voice was an agonized whisper. ‘Aye, it hurts.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now you know how it feels.’ He put a hand inside his jacket, took out a packet of cigarettes, extracted one and lit up.

She looked at him, so cool, so calm - so cruel. This was not the Robert Baxter she knew. This was a brittle elegant stranger. Elegant? It seemed a funny word to use about Robbie Baxter, but it was the one that fitted. He was studying her dispassionately, putting the cigarette to his lips, striking a match to light it.

‘I didn’t know you had taken up smoking.’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me. There was certainly a lot I didn’t know about you. Wasn’t there?’

Kate turned her head away and bit her lip, unable to meet that unforgiving gaze any longer.

Robbie swore. Coarsely and violently. Startled, Kate looked up. She had known he was capable of it. All the men in the yards did it, but few of them let a curse pass their lips when they were in female company. He gave another angry exclamation and tossed his cigarette into the river. She watched the glowing red tip as it fell in an arc towards the water. She even heard the tiny hiss as it was extinguished.

Then there was rapid breathing in her ear and Robbie was beside her, gripping her wrist, and looking down his long nose at her. ‘Wasn’t there?’ he demanded. ‘A lot of things I didn’t know?’

Tm sorry,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’ he spat out. ‘Sorry? For Christ’s sake, Kathleen!’

Kate felt a spark of anger. She tossed her head. ‘Yes! I’m sorry! What else do you want me to say? I did a terrible thing to you, but by God I’ve been punished for it! And don’t swear at me!’

He dropped her arm and took a step or two backwards. ‘I’m sorry for swearing,’ he said tersely. ‘And for taking the Lord’s name in vain.’ He lit up again and stood looking at her from under his dark brows. ‘What was he like?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Our son?’

‘Like you,’ Kate said, caught off-balance by the suddenness of the question. ‘He had this really curious look about him - inquisitive. You know?’

The man in front of her nodded, his lips pressed firmly together.

‘I told him his name ... and I told him about you ... and Grace... and me... and he drew his wee eyebrows together, exactly like you do when you’re trying to work something out.’ She was silent, remembering those precious few moments with their son.

‘What did you call him?’

‘Neil James. After his two grandfathers. My father baptized him.’

Robbie nodded his head. ‘You chose fine names.’

Somewhere deep inside Kate a tiny flame of hope flared into life. It was as small as the glowing end of Robbie’s cigarette, and might be as easily put out, but it was there.

‘Why didn’t someone write to me?’ he demanded. ‘Let me know what had happened?’

She stared at him. ‘Jessie wrote to you. Did you not get the letter?’

‘Jessie?’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘No, I got two letters from you.’

‘No,’ Kate insisted. “The second one was from Jessie. I wasn’t well enough to write. She wrote and told you what had happened.’ Her voice broke. ‘And you never replied. I waited and waited. I even thought you might come home as soon as you got the news. But you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t know!’ he burst out. ‘I didn’t open the second letter. I was so sure it was from you. The handwriting looked the same.’ He put the cigarette to his lips, then withdrew it, looking at it in disgust. ‘God, I hate these bloody things.’ It went the same way as the first one.

‘You didn’t open it?’ Kate’s voice rose on a note of mingled outrage and incredulity.

Robbie gave her a curious look. ‘You’re angry at me,’ he observed.

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, realizing it for the first time. ‘Yes, I’m angry at you.’

He was watching her carefully. ‘Because I wasn’t there when you needed me?’

‘That,’ said Kate, thinking about it. ‘And because you had me up on a pedestal. You thought I was perfect, that I couldn’t make mistakes. Well, I can. And I did. Why did you not open the second letter?’ she asked, her voice a little calmer.

‘Because the first one was so ...’ He paused, searching for the right word. ‘Cold. I couldn’t face another one like that.’

‘Cold?’

‘Well, what would you call it?’ He quoted verbatim. ‘ “
It looks like being quite a hot summer this year. We are all well and hope that you are too.
” And the way you signed it! “
Kathleen Baxter
.” In the name of God, Kate! How do you think I felt when I read that?’

‘I don’t know. How did you feel?’

His answer came straight back at her. ‘That you didn’t love me any more. That you never really had loved me. That you still loved him.’

Kate was getting angry again. ‘How could you think I didn’t love you? How could you, after how it had been between us two? Are you stupid or something, Robert Baxter?’

He looked startled. Then his face relaxed.

‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘I’m stupid, a right eejit. I need things spelled out for me.’

She spelled them out for him. ‘I love you. I always have done and I always will.’

‘And Jack Drummond?’ Robbie’s voice was deceptively calm.

‘I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. That he wanted to marry me. I was wrong on all three counts.’ She dropped her eyes, embarrassed at what she was going to say next, but knowing that it had to be said. ‘But that’s why I slept with him ... and I did it once, Robbie. Just once.’

There was a long silence. Kate shivered as a little breeze off the water stung her cheek. She dared to look up. Robbie was slowly nodding his head.

‘That’s what I figured. When I had time to think about it. And he wouldn’t marry you and your mother told you it was me or some old witch with a knitting needle.’

Kate flinched.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was coarsely put. But that was what happened, wasn’t it?’

She nodded, unable to speak.

‘And you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t bear to end a life that had only just begun.’ He paused. ‘Grace’s life.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, I couldn’t.’ She coughed to clear her throat and went on, her voice stronger. ‘I couldn’t get rid of the baby, I just couldn’t - and you were so upset about Barbara. I knew that you loved me, and I thought I could try to be a good wife to you, try to make you happy.’

She dared a look at him. Robbie was watching her intently.

‘When Grace was born you loved her so much... like she loves you so much. I knew that didn’t make it right, but I thought - maybe - it made up a bit for what I had done to you.’

Robbie’s grave expression hadn’t altered. Kate forced herself to go on.

‘Then I realized that I did love you, that it was you I had loved all along.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘Maybe I’ve realized that too late.’ She had tears in her eyes again. Turning her head away she looked out across the river to the lights of Renfrew. It must be nearly midnight. Almost the New Year.