When the Bough Breaks Page 2

  ‘What’s up?’ she said, turning unexpectedly from her task. Then, suddenly uncertain, ‘Are you all right, Den? You look sort of funny.’

  ‘Kathie, I was thinking.’

  ‘Oh dear! Do you always look funny when you think?’ she teased.

  ‘Kathie, I’ve never felt like this before. Is this what being in love does to you?’

  ‘In love?’ It was barely a whisper.

  The runner beans were forgotten as he came close to her and held her hands tightly in his. ‘Can’t think of anything but you. I want you as part of my life – all of my life – working together, living together. Kathie, what is it? Don’t cry, Kathie.’

  ‘Can’t help it. So happy.’ As the tears spilled from her brimming eyes, she forced her contorted face into a smile. ‘Hold me tight, Den.’

  Clinging to each other they knew complete happiness. With all the innocence of youth they saw their futures as cloudless; if they had each other nothing could touch them.

  ‘You’re only eighteen. Who has to give permission for you to marry?’

  ‘My mother.’ It came as a surprise to him that she had a relative as close as a mother. She never spoke of her family. ‘She lives in Hampshire. My father died when I was just a kid but Mum and I were fine, he left enough money for us to live on. I don’t mean we were rich, but she never had to worry and the house was our own. I was still at school when she met Cyril Harper, a photographer. She fell for him. She behaved as if she were less than half her age. Anyway, it was stupid; we were quite all right as we were. But they got married and he came to live in our house. He decided I was old enough to leave school and help at home. I was no more than a glorified maid in the house – not even a glorified one if I’m truthful. Mother got pregnant as soon as they were married and the next thing I was expected to be nursemaid too. Algy was a good little chap I suppose, but I resented always having to look after him, wash his nappies, everything. But Mother was intent on giving beastly Cyril everything he wanted. Before Algy was a year old she had her next, a girl they called Lily. That was back in January. I made up my mind I was going to get a job. Then with Lily only a few weeks old, Mother and her wretched man were pleased as punch because she recognized the signs; hardly up and about from Lily, she was pregnant again. They seem to want to breed like rabbits and they’re not even young. Mother is forty and he’s even more. It’s disgusting.’ She almost spat the word out.

  Dennis looked at her tenderly, thinking not so much about her mother’s second chance at happiness as about the hurt he knew Kathie felt.

  ‘But they’re happy together?’

  ‘If being happy means that she gazes at him like some moonstruck youngster and talks a lot of drivel about getting pregnant so easily being proof that they are made for each other. It was as if she couldn’t think of anything else. It was as if he’d cast a sort of spell on her. I didn’t want to hear about it. They’re old, for goodness sake! It’s revolting. Anyway I saw this job in the newspaper and wrote about it, then the next thing I knew I had a letter saying they wanted me to work for them. They’re a nice old couple – Mr and Miss Blackwell. They pay me ten shillings a week and my keep – it was going to be seven and sixpence but on my first pay day Mr Blackwell said they had had a little chat and decided to give me ten shillings.’ She had talked fast, speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘Heavens! Hark at me! Once I get started there’s no stopping me.’

  ‘I love you Kathie Barnes. I want to know everything – about your past, about your thoughts . . .’

  ‘And my future?’

  ‘And your future . . . every day of our lives, darling Kathie. And if what your mother says is true we shall have an army of children to help us on the land.’

  She chuckled, nuzzling her head against his neck.

  ‘I’ll write to Mother this evening and tell her about us. I’ll say we want to be married and ask for her consent. She’ll give it right enough. She’s so besotted with that pompous prick of a man that she’s probably forgotten I exist at all.’

  Dennis laughed at the sudden change in her tone.

  ‘We’ll be so happy that no one will have the power to trouble us. I ought to have proposed to you in the time honoured way, on one knee vowing my endless love—’

  ‘And all that jazz,’ she sang. Then meeting his gaze her expression suddenly changed again. Excitement gave way to an emotion that seemed to take her breath away. ‘Den, hold me close.’ She had never been kissed like this; her heart was pounding and following her natural impulse her lips parted and she moved her tongue on his mouth. For Dennis, too, this was a new experience. Often enough when he’d woken in the silence of the night he had imagined her as he followed where nature led. But that was as nothing compared with the reality of holding her.

  ‘Your hand,’ she whispered with her mouth touching his. And the next thing he knew she guided him to press it against her small, pert breast, her own hand covering his and moving his fingers backwards and forwards across the pinnacle of her nipple.

  ‘No, Kathie,’ he spoke more to himself than to her. ‘Kathie, I want to touch you, every bit of you. Oh God, but I want you.’

  She felt him pull his hand from her breast and moved her own with it, so that as he lowered his she still held it and together they raised her skirt then guided him to the wide leg of her knickers. Never before had he hated the narrow life he’d led as he hated it now. On leave in France he had been with some of his compatriots to what were thought of as ‘naughty’ shows, but never had he seen a naked woman and never had his hand explored as it did as Kathie stood close against him with one leg wrapped around him. As his finger probed he drew back his head and looked at Kathie; her eyes were closed, her lips parted and as she breathed she made a soft whimpering sound. She was as inexperienced and naïve as he was, but she wasn’t ignorant. With her eyes still closed she moved the hand that had lead him to his goal and eased it into the waist of his trousers. He gave a shuddering sigh as he felt it close around him.

  ‘Kathie, no, Kathie, no.’ Then, unable to stop himself, he continued, ‘Yes, go on, harder, harder, oh God, coming . . . can’t stop it.’ With a convulsive movement he leant heavily on her as she felt the warm fluid on her hand, bringing her closer to filling the gaps in her knowledge and understanding. ‘So sorry . . . tried not to . . .’

  ‘I’m glad it happened. Den, I love you so much.’ They had moved apart, her skirt fallen back into place and her hand retrieved. But the moment still held them; they weren’t ready to let it go. He passed her his handkerchief to wipe her hand; they didn’t look directly at each other. For both of them the last minutes had been a journey of discovery.

  ‘How soon can we get married?’ she asked. ‘We don’t have to save up for a silly honeymoon or anything, do we? And working in the garden here I shan’t want a trousseau of posh clothes.’

  ‘Before you go, give me your mother’s name and address. I’ll write to her this evening.’

  ‘You, not me?’

  ‘You can write as well if you want, of course you can. But I must ask her permission. And she’ll want to know something about me.’ Then with a sudden and boyish grin, he added, ‘What a fine upstanding young fella I am.’

  ‘What about your people? Not for permission, but they ought to know what sort of a girl you’re tying yourself up to.’

  ‘I’ve told you about Grandad dying while I was in France. He was all the family I had. I can’t remember my parents; they were killed in a train crash when I was about three. They’d been on an outing with the church choir they both sang in. Grandad brought me up.’

  ‘Oh Den, how sad for you.’ But she’d make it up a hundredfold all that he’d missed.

  ‘Now look here, this is no way to waste good daylight hours.’ The last minutes were like a dream, but now reality was catching up with him. ‘If you finish cutting and boxing up the calabrese, I’ll get the handcart across and we’ll push off down to the village. I’ve got carrots and spinach boxed up ready
. I say, what a team, eh?’

  They were restored to their usual friendly footing.

  That evening they each wrote to Millicent, neither knowing exactly what the other had told her. The days went by and there was no reply. By Kathie’s next day off they didn’t try to hide their disappointment. Secretly Dennis had hoped that the news would have brought about a return to the earlier closeness between mother and daughter.

  ‘Den, would we be able to afford to keep a pig when we’re married? Mrs Hutchins, she’s the cook where I work, she’s been making brawn and I helped her. She’s taught me so much; every week there’s something different. I know how to make preserves, and bottle fruit and vegetables. It’s going to be such fun. But about the pig, she said that when she was a girl her people always reared one for the table. You don’t have to kill it yourself, you send it to be done and it comes back in joints, chops, and all sorts of things. We could barter in the village – a whole ham would be worth, oh I don’t know, perhaps curtains for the sitting room or something. It’s just that I don’t know if we could afford to buy a piglet.’

  ‘It’s all extra work, Kathie.’

  ‘I’d look after it. And think of all the edible bits you put on the compost heap every day when you prepare the vegetables to take to the shop. Once I’m here all the time I could cook it all up and make it appetizing for the lucky chap.’

  ‘You’re a glutton for work, young Kathie.’

  Her chuckle was a sign of the contentment she felt. ‘Work is something you get paid to do for someone else. What we do here isn’t like work; the more we do, the more established Westways becomes. And Westways will be us. Listen, Den, there’s a motor coming down the lane. If they’re trying to go to the common they’ll have to reverse all the way back.’

  ‘It’s stopping, whoever it is must be going to turn by our double gate.’

  But they were both wrong. A minute later they heard the click of the garden gate leading to the front door of the cottage.

  ‘I’d better go and see,’ Den said, wiping his hands on his overalls.

  Humming to herself, Kathie continued trimming the main crop carrots, letting her mind leap forward to when she would be turning the vegetable trimmings into pigswill.

  ‘Kathie!’ At the sound she stood bolt upright.

  ‘Mother!’ Her pretty mother! But she had never looked like this when she’d been expecting Algy or Lily. ‘Mother, how did you know I’d be here? Have you been to see the Blackwells?’

  ‘I wanted to see for myself what sort of a man it is you want to marry.’

  Kathie’s eyes filled with hot tears. Her mother still cared! Throwing down her knife, then laying the carrot on the pile, she hurried to hurl herself at Millicent.

  ‘Careful Kathie, don’t knock me off my feet.’

  ‘You look as though it would take a mighty great push to do that,’ Kathie laughed. ‘How long have you got to wait?’

  ‘If I got pregnant when I think I did, I’m due in six weeks.’

  ‘You look like the cat who stole the cream.’ Kathie found her old irritation surfacing.

  ‘That’s how I feel. I know I’m huge, but there’s good reason. This time the doctor tells me he believes it’s twins.’

  ‘Four children! Are you all right? You’re not young.’ She didn’t mean it as unkindly as it sounded.

  ‘I wish I were. I wish I were twenty instead of forty. But years have nothing to do with anything. I feel young – and a thousand times happier and more loved than I did at twenty. Kathie, I wish you were living near us. Soon you’ll be a wife and there’s so much we could share. But just one thing: when your young man wrote he said you both want the wedding very soon, as soon as possible. Was he trying to tell me that you’d been doing things you shouldn’t?’

  ‘Things we shouldn’t?’

  ‘Shouldn’t before you’re married, I mean. You know I’ve said before that when two people are right together there is nothing easier or more natural than to make a baby. And in my opinion it’s a gift from God whether it’s before you’re married or after. So you can tell me, Kathie, you mustn’t be frightened.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong – about us I mean.’ Then, laughing and encompassing the five-acre field with a grand sweep of her arm, she explained, ‘With all this to look after we have too much to do on my day off to spend time “doing what we shouldn’t”.’

  ‘Oh dear, don’t be like your father. He was never interested in that sort of thing; sometimes I wonder how I conceived you at all. When he did rise to the occasion it was such a passionless performance. The only passion he knew was for the bones and treasures to be dug up of people who’d been dead for hundreds of years; the nights I’ve cried myself to sleep! Then after he died, I had to wait all those achingly lonely years. No wonder I fell in love with Cyril. The first time we talked I just knew that with him – well, I seemed to read his thoughts just as he read mine. I do wish you’d liked him better; you were always so scratchy to him.’ Then, changing the subject, her voice alive with excitement, she continued, ‘Did you hear us arrive? We drove. We’ve had such an exciting summer since Cyril has bought a motor cycle and sidecar.’ Like a child she giggled. ‘Not much space in a sidecar. If I get much bigger he’ll have to get me in and out with a shoehorn. Let’s go and find the men. I left him to have a talk with your young man. Then there’s something else we want to tell you. Oh Kathie, who would have thought that life could be so . . . so thrilling?’

  ‘And you’ll write a letter giving me your consent to marry?’

  ‘Oh but I’ve done that already. We brought it with us. Cyril has it in his pocket. If you think he’s right for you then I’m sure he must be. You’re a sensible girl – too sensible I sometimes think, too much of your father in you – but I’m sure you wouldn’t lose your heart to someone who was no good. Wait until we are all together, then Cyril has some news for you.’

  Kathie and Cyril greeted each other with cool courtesy, but on that occasion Millicent was too eager for his announcement to notice.

  ‘We wish you both well for your future together. And I must say –’ Cyril addressed his words to Dennis – ‘Millicent will have no worries leaving Kathie with you, certain that she will be in good hands. When do you hope to be married?’

  ‘We haven’t even talked about dates yet,’ Kathie answered him. ‘I don’t see there’s any reason to wait, do you, Den?’

  ‘Today would suit me fine,’ Dennis laughed, ‘but I imagine your mother would prefer we wait until after the birth.’

  ‘I hardly look like mother of the bride.’ Millicent cradled her enormous hump in both hands, smiling at Cyril as if to acknowledge the part he’d played. ‘But you can have a wedding without me being there. I’ve written my consent; Cyril will leave it with you. As soon as I’m about again after shedding my load – well you tell them Cyril darling.’

  He came to her and put his arm around her and just like a teenager in the throes of first love she gazed at him in open adoration.

  ‘We are leaving the country,’ he announced. ‘As soon as Millicent is ready for the journey we are moving out to California. I have a friend with a most successful photographic studio, he is renowned for his portraits – well-known people in the world of moving pictures sit for him. He knows my work well and he has written suggesting that I take over the Californian studio as he means to open in New York. High society will flock to him; he is able to flatter even the plainest. Indeed my own work is very similar to his, but my clientele very different. I shall never reach the top of my profession where I am now. We have a buyer for the house so by the time the legal work is all completed the timing should be right. So we are off, we two, the new nursemaid is coming with us and by then the four children to keep her busy. Any more family we have will be born American. Isn’t that so, my precious?’

  Millicent nodded, moving his arm down and pressing his hand to the hump she carried with such pride.

  Dennis said all the right things, co
ngratulating Cyril, wishing them every happiness in their venture. But Kathie said nothing. Just for those first moments with her mother their old closeness seemed to be unchanged, but it had been an illusion. Already she was forgotten.

  ‘Can you stay and eat with us?’ Dennis invited. ‘We always have something around teatime so that Kathie can cycle back to Exeter before it’s dark.’

  ‘No, we’ll get on our way. I have the letter here that Millie has written. She did it before we left home so that she could see you had it safely. And now my darling we’ll say our farewells. We have a long drive ahead of us. We’ll find somewhere for a meal when we get most of the journey behind us.’

  Five minutes later, making a great thing of what a tight squeeze it was to fit her bulk into the sidecar, Millicent blew a final kiss as Cyril started the motor. Then without a backward glance they were off.

  ‘America’s such a long way. Don’t expect she’ll ever come back.’ Kathie heard her voice break as she blinked back the tears.

  ‘No. It’ll be a different world for them. And so will ours be different for us.’

  Kathie nodded, forcing a smile. ‘You get the cart and I’ll finish the carrots or we shan’t get them delivered in time for us to have tea before I have to start back. Now we’ve got the letters Den what is there for us to wait for?’