The River Flows On

by Maggie Craig

  His shaggy head bent, Robbie was studying his hands, clasped loosely in his lap. Infuriated by his lack of response, she put her hands on his shoulders, and shook him hard. His head snapped up. Stormy grey eyes met furious green ones.

  Then, shrugging off her hands, he stood up, suddenly not calm at all.

  ‘I don’t want you to work!’ he yelled. ‘It’s the man’s place to do that! Can you not understand that, woman?’

  Kate was rendered momentarily speechless. She stared at him, not believing what he had just said.

  ‘You don’t want me to work?’ Spluttering, she waved a hand to indicate the room in which they stood. ‘What the hell do you think I do all day?’

  Robbie winced. ‘Don’t swear.’

  Kate’s chin went up. ‘I’ll swear worse than that before I’ve finished. So you don’t want me to work. Do you have any idea what I do all day? I look after Grace, I keep this place clean, I dust, I polish, I scrub, I cook. I clean the fire, I set the fire, I put coal on it - and the coal dust gets everywhere. I go all over Clydebank trying to stretch what money we’ve got as far as it’ll go. Then I come home and I start all over again. Washing clothes, scrubbing, cooking. Trying to put something tasty on the table every night with precious little money to do it with.’

  Her voice wobbled. She clamped her mouth tightly shut for a few seconds and started again.

  ‘And you don’t call that work? How dare you insult me like that, Robert Baxter!’

  He had heard the tremble in her voice. He reached out a tentative hand towards her but she was too angry to allow him to speak.

  ‘Have you seen the state of my hands?’ She thrust them out to him and hastily withdrew them. Like her voice, they were trembling.

  ‘They’re red and dry and hard from scrubbing and cooking and everything else that I do. I keep this place like a wee palace. Have you any idea what it’s like keeping a place clean and tidy and not even being able to afford a wee bunch of flowers to brighten it up? Have you? Have you?’ Her voice rose with each question.

  ‘Kate. I’m sorry...’

  ‘I’m sorry too.’ Abruptly, she walked away from him.

  Brought up short by the jaw-box, she hugged herself and stood staring out. She took a big, shuddering deep breath. It lifted her shoulders and her breasts.

  Behind her, Robbie was silent. Trying to work out how to deal with me, she thought, a part of her brain, as usual, taking a step back and observing what was going on, rather than being a part of it. They’d had disagreements before, but never anything as bitter as this. Well, thought Kate, lifting her chin and tossing her head, it’s up to him to speak, up to him to offer me an apology.

  When none was forthcoming, she swung around. He had obviously been staring intently at her back but she couldn’t read the expression on his face.

  ‘I want to do this,’ she said. ‘I want to take the work Marjorie’s offering me.’

  Had his expression softened? If it had, it hardened again when she spoke.

  ‘No. No wife of mine is going out to work. Particularly not while her husband’s idle.’ The grey eyes had grown steely.

  Kate curled her lip. ‘No wife of yours? How many have you got, Robbie? I want to do this.’ She was too proud to plead with him, but she added one more sentence. ‘It makes sense for me to do this.’

  He gave her a stern look. ‘No. And that’s final.’

  Provoked beyond all endurance, Kate bunched her fingers into fists.

  ‘Oh, in the name of God! Marjorie’s offering me a good job with good money, and you can’t get a job at the moment. Don’t be so bloody pig-headed!’

  ‘That’s right. Fling it at me that I’m out of work! That I can’t support Grace and you properly! That I’m not a real man!’

  Abruptly, with jerky movements, he strode over to the sideboard Kate had repainted. Pulling open the middle drawer, he took out the contents of the emergency fund - paltry enough these days.

  ‘And just where do you think you’re going with that?’ she demanded.

  He gave her back stare for stare, flinging his next words at her. ‘Maybe I’ll go and have a drink! It aye seems to work for your father!’

  All the colour drained from Kate’s face. She could feel it. She was pale to the lips.

  ‘You do that, then!’ she shouted.

  ‘I will! Don’t you worry about that!’

  He pulled the front door behind him with a crash that echoed up and down the stairwell. Kate, drained and quite exhausted, slid into the armchair and buried her head in her hands.

  By the time she heard the knock at the door two hours later, she had regained some measure of composure, fragile though that was. After she had finished crying she had splashed her burning face with cold water several times, and pressed a wet cloth against her swollen eyelids. Then she had washed her hair, made herself a cup of tea and got on with the chores. What else could she do?

  She saw the bouquet of flowers before she saw Robbie. He was holding it in front of his face and it was a large one - properly wrapped up and tied with pink ribbon and a bow. He lowered it slowly and gave her a tentative smile.

  ‘Haven’t you got your key?’ she demanded.

  ‘Aye.’ He tried another smile. ‘But I thought maybe I should ask you whether or not I can come in.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘It’s your house.’ She turned on her heel, not looking to see if he was following her. Sitting down at the kitchen table she clasped her hands in front of her and stared down at her interlocked fingers. There were some children playing in the back court, their voices and laughter drifting up to them. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Robbie’s voice was deep and measured.

  ‘Would you look at me, Kathleen?’

  The children were playing hide and seek. Kate recognized the voice of the little girl who was doing the counting. ‘Ready or not, here I come!’

  In the stillness of the room, Robbie repeated his request.

  ‘Would you look at me, Kathleen? Please?’

  The calmness of his tone undid her as the previous yelling had not. Tears welled up like a fountain, sliding down her smooth cheeks and falling onto her hands. He was there in an instant. Down on one knee beside her, he laid the bouquet of flowers on the table, lifted her hands onto her lap and covered them with his own.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Can you forgive me for shouting at you, Kate? And saying all those terrible things to you?’

  She didn’t answer him because she couldn’t. There was a lump in her throat the size of a tennis ball. Taking her silence for refusal, Robbie squeezed her hands and redoubled his efforts.

  ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It wasn’t fair, I know that. I do know how hard you work, believe me, I do. And you’ve made this place real nice - doing up the sideboard and making wee cushions and things like that. I know that too - and I appreciate it. I really do.’

  He squeezed her hands again. Kate gulped, swallowing the lump.

  ‘Do you?’ she managed.

  ‘Aye,’ he said simply. ‘I do.’ Stretching up from where he knelt on the floor he kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘You’ve made a real home for us here.’ He glanced around, his mouth curving in an affectionate smile. ‘It may not be much, but it’s ours. And I love it. Do you know why, Kate?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Because you’re in it,’ he explained, his deep voice very soft, and his eyes fixed on her face. ‘And Grace, too. If I can have the two of you - and our wee home - then I’ll be a happy man. That’s all I need.’ His smile deepened. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t say no to getting back to work again, either.’

  Kate decided to let that one go. It was a long time since he’d been in a good enough mood to laugh at himself. It might be a fragile state. She looked doubtfully down at him, kneeling at her feet on the hard floor.

  ‘Should you not maybe get up? You’ll get a sore knee - or pins and needles, at least.’

  He tossed his head, flickin
g back his hair. His voice was robust.

  ‘Bugger my knee! Excuse my French,’ he added. Then, his face clearing even further, ‘What’s so funny?’

  For Kate had smiled at last. She was laughing down at him.

  ‘We’ve just had the worst fight we’ve ever had and you’re apologizing for swearing. Always the gentleman.’

  The momentary amusement which had brightened Robbie’s face faded.

  ‘I thought he was the gentleman. Jack Drummond. The man you might have married.’

  Kate caught her breath. It had never been stated so baldly. Robbie gave her a quick, darting glance and went on speaking, his voice deliberately light.

  ‘He’s the gentleman and I’m the horny-handed son of toil, is that no’ right? Except that I’m not toiling at the moment. Makes a man feel a wee bit useless.’

  ‘Does it?’

  Very tentatively, she slid a hand out of his grasp and raised it to his face, gently touching his mouth. He kissed her fingers. She let him do it, but then, suddenly shy, she tried to withdraw her hand. He wouldn’t let her. Grasping her wrist he kept her hand where it was, lightly resting on his jawline. His next question made her heart race.

  ‘Do you wish you had married him?’

  ‘No.’

  His fingers tightened their hold on her wrist. ‘I want an honest answer. Not the one you think I want to hear.’

  She studied his face. In some ways he hadn’t changed much since they had played together as children. His dark hair was tousled, just as she always remembered it. He was frowning, his dark brows almost meeting over his long straight nose. It was how he always looked when he was trying to puzzle out the answer to some problem that was troubling him.

  There was something different about his eyes, though. Where once there had been only youthful enthusiasm and zest for life, there was now caution. There was hurt too - a man’s hurt. Adversity had put that there. Barbara’s death, unemployment, the struggle to survive...she herself?

  Her gaze fell to his lips; her artist’s eye saw their colour - a dark pink - and their beautiful shape. There was a tiny amount of extra fullness on the lower one and the lips were slightly parted. It was a man’s mouth, not a boy’s.

  Kate Baxter realized something then, realized too that she had known it for some time. It had taken the catalyst of Marjorie and Jack Drummond’s visit, and the tensions released by that visit, to make her see it. She looked up, and their eyes met once more.

  ‘I married the right man.’

  He grabbed her other hand, a spark of hope in his eyes.

  ‘You’re not crossing your fingers.’

  ‘You know I do that?’

  ‘I know you do that.’ The gleam in his eyes was growing, but he was still cautious, scared to hope.

  Kate leaned forward and kissed him, her own lips, like his, slightly open. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Oh, Kate,’ he sighed against her mouth. She was startled when he gave a sudden yelp of pain.

  ‘Robbie, what’s the matter?’

  Leaping to his feet, he yanked out one of the chairs from the table and sank down onto it.

  ‘My knee’s killing me, that’s what’s the matter. Oh, bloody hell - excuse me - oh, bugger - sorry - I have got the pins and needles!’ He was rubbing furiously at his leg. Glancing up, he caught sight of Kate’s face. ‘Stop laughing! It isn’t funny!’

  But then he was laughing too and suddenly they were both standing up, having a fit of the giggles.

  ‘I’d better put the flowers in water,’ said Kate when they were both finally able to speak without laughing, wiping her eyes. ‘Did you really walk through Clydebank carrying them?’

  ‘I did,’ he said, trying to look severe. ‘The comments I had to put up with. Everyone’s a comedian in this town, have you noticed?’

  When she had arranged the flowers to her satisfaction - a task they both knew had taken far longer than it merited - he produced a small package. Kate unwrapped it carefully. It contained a bottle of hand cream, perfumed with lily of the valley.

  ‘Give me your poor wee rough hands and I’ll rub it in for you,’ said Robbie matter-of-factly. Before she could protest he took both her hands, laid them face down on the table and dropped a small bead of the lotion onto each one.

  ‘Oh! That’s cold.’

  ‘Keep your hands still. It’ll warm up soon.’

  He was meticulous in his work, rubbing the cream carefully into the backs of her hands and then instructing her to turn them over.

  Kate allowed her head to fall back. Coldness again. Twice, as he dropped two spots of the scented cream onto her palms. He stroked it into her fingers, one by one, from base to tip, his work-roughened skin benefiting from the lotion as much as hers. Kate sighed.

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘More than nice,’ she murmured. ‘Oh!’ Her eyes opened.

  ‘What?’ He was smiling. ‘What are you feeling?’

  She was breathless. ‘Funny feelings ... funny sensations in funny places...’

  ‘Nice sensations?’ His smile was growing broader and his eyes were beginning to sparkle. ‘Fancy the same treatment somewhere else? Your back, for instance? Very relaxing, a back rub - so I’m told. Of course, you’d have to take some clothes off.’ His eyes went to her breasts. ‘Your blouse, for a start. And it might be more comfortable if you lay down.’ His hands being fully occupied, he made a gesture with his head. ‘On the bed, that is.’

  She went completely still, and he cursed himself for an idiot. He had rushed her. The sparkle died out of his eyes and he stopped massaging her fingers. ‘You’re still scared of it.’

  ‘I’ve always been scared of it.’

  He knew that was true, but he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Not this time. It was for her too, after all.

  ‘I think, maybe,’ he began, choosing his words, ‘that if you let me try, I could make it nice for you. If we take it very, very slowly ... if you allow me to woo you, to pay court to you.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘To make love to you.’

  He was asking a lot. He knew that. If she turned him down, he was going to have to live with it. He loved her far too much to insist.

  ‘Robbie, look at me ...’

  Her hand was at the collar of her blouse. She was beginning to undo the buttons.

  ‘Slowly?’ she asked, and he saw that she really was scared. He hadn’t thought that it was possible to love her any more than he did. He had been wrong.

  ‘Slowly,’ he promised. Her hand was trembling. He put his own over it to hold it steady. ‘But would you consider letting me do this?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ she whispered.

  Kate opened her eyes cautiously the next morning. He was awake, propped up on one elbow watching her.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Baxter.’

  ‘Now I know why people make such a fuss about it.’

  His smile, broad already, grew broader still.

  ‘So I’ve done something right at last?’ The guarded look had gone completely from his eyes. They were filled now with mischief. ‘I kind of thought you were enjoying yourself - judging by the funny wee noises you were making.’

  ‘I was not making funny wee noises,’ said Kate indignantly, struggling up onto her elbows. Then she stopped. ‘I was, wasn’t I? I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.

  Robbie laughed and took her in his arms. ‘I loved your funny wee noises, hen. In fact, I was hoping I might hear them again sometime.’ He raised his eyebrows in enquiry. ‘How about tonight?’ He kissed her. ‘And maybe tomorrow night? And maybe the night after that, as well? Mmm?’ He punctuated each question with a kiss.

  Kate, safe and warm and loved in his arms, smiled. ‘As often as you like.’

  He smiled warmly back, turning with her in his arms so that he lay on his back with her above him, her hand lying lightly on his chest. He played idly with a strand of her chestnut hair, tousled now as his so often was.

  ‘Do you really mean that?’

  �
�I do.’ Then, seeing that he still needed reassurance, she bent and kissed him. ‘You did good work last night, Robert Baxter. Maybe I’m going to become insatiable.’

  His eyes lit up at her choice of word. ‘Insatiable?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll be wanting you to m-make l-love to me all the time.’ Kate stumbled over the phrase, shy still for all her bravado, but she went gamely on, poking him in the chest. ‘You’ll be worn out before I’m finished with you.’

  His grin was a joy to behold. He kissed her again. Very thoroughly.

  ‘All the same, Kate,’ he said a few moments later, ‘much as I would like to, we can’t make love all the time.’

  ‘No?’ She lifted her head in mock-surprise, waiting for the joke.

  ‘Not when you’re at work, certainly.’

  ‘What?’ She jerked up, her heart beating too fast.

  Robbie was trying for the pained look. ‘Well, you don’t think I’d have spent the emergency fund on frivolities like flowers and hand cream if I hadn’t been planning to send you out to work, do you? You’d better go and see Marjorie Drummond first thing on Monday morning.’

  Kate, her green eyes wide, came up on her knees onto the bed. ‘You mean you don’t mind? You’ll agree to me going out to work?’

  Robbie nodded smugly.

  ‘You pig!’ yelled Kate. ‘You rotten pig!’ Bending forward, she yanked the pillow out from under his head and began hitting him with it. Laughing, he fended her off.

  ‘Help! Help! I’m being attacked by a wild woman. Ow! Stop it, ye wee bisom.’ But he was laughing too much to stop her. When she paused for breath, he grabbed her by the waist and turned her neatly over so that she was lying beneath him, the pillow between their bodies.

  ‘We’ll just get rid of this.’ He raised his body and pulled out the offending object.

  ‘Ahhh ...’ breathed Kate a few seconds later.