The River Flows On

by Maggie Craig

  Kate went to stand by him. ‘Peter,’ she said softly.

  His eyes filled with tears when he saw her. ‘Kate,’ he said, through cracked lips. ‘Och, Kate ...’

  ‘Hush, now,’ she said, putting her arms around him.

  He looked up at her, his dirty face streaked with tears. ‘I wasn’t with them, Kate. That’s what I can’t bear. They must have been so scared.’

  She lifted one of his hands. It was bleeding, his skin shredded and his fingernails jagged. Oh God, he must have tried to dig them out with his bare hands ...

  ‘What am I going to do, Kate?’

  Her arms tightening around him, she pulled him into the warmth of her body. ‘What we’re all going to do, Peter. Keep going. That’s all. Just keep going. That’s all any of us can do.’

  Chapter 36

  Two years after the war ended Kate visited the islands. The Orcadians welcomed her with open hearts and quiet sympathy. She saw the sights Robbie must have seen: the burial chamber of Maes Howe with its runic inscriptions; the Stone Age village of Skara Brae; St Magnus’s Cathedral. She saw Scapa Flow, still full of British warships but with a hole at its heart, a marker buoy indicating where the Royal Oak lay under the water.

  She took a bus down over the Churchill barriers, the defences built in response to that tragedy by Italian prisoners of war. She visited the Italian chapel, made by those prisoners out of a Nissen hut. With only scrap materials to work with, they had created an exquisite little place of worship in the style of the churches of their homeland. Kate found it in her heart to admire the men who had conquered their homesickness by making something beautiful out of nothing.

  Tm glad you’re going,’ Peter had said when he’d seen her off. ‘You see, I know that Mary and Adam are dead, because I saw them. But I don’t think you know that Robbie is. Not really. In here, maybe.’ He tapped her forehead. ‘But not in your heart. You’re still hoping he’ll walk through the door one day.’

  ‘Och, Peter,’ Kate said gently. ‘You’re not going to ask me again, are you?’

  She had hoped at first that their increasing closeness over the war years had been because of their tragic bond, strengthening their friendship because they had both known the pain of losing partners. On VE Day, however, as the whole country had celebrated, Peter had turned to Kate and asked her to marry him. They were not old, and he was sure that neither Mary nor Robbie would have begrudged them some happiness. Kate thought that was true. It made no difference.

  She valued Peter as a friend, and she told him so. Robbie had been her husband - her soulmate, her lover, her best friend. There couldn’t be another relationship like that. Not for her.

  Peter, however, hadn’t been prepared to take no for an answer and brought the subject up at frequent intervals. Not, apparently, on this occasion.

  ‘Credit me with some sensitivity, Kate. I’d hardly ask you when you were about to go off to the Orkneys, would I now? Mind and take travel sickness pills wi’ you. I hear the Pentland Firth’s gey rough.’

  She left the Ring of Brodgar till the day before she left the islands, going there in the early morning, a lift having been arranged for her with one of the local posties in his van. It was a remarkable place. She counted the stones - thirty-six of them - all much, much taller than herself and arranged in a huge circle - more than 300 hundred feet in diameter, the postman had told her. She walked round it, on the inside of the stones, and then obeyed a childish impulse to do it twice more. Three times for luck.

  She stood then with her back against one of the stones and looked about her: heather-clad hills in the distance, two sparkling blue lochans in the hollow between the stones and the hills. The countryside was quite different, but it reminded her of how she had felt the day she had looked out over the Tummel at Pitlochry. It had been a turning point, the day she had decided to start living again. After a fashion. But she was tired now. It had been a long war.

  Abruptly, she slid down the stone to sit on the grass, closing her eyes and letting the wind caress her face.

  Her mind was full of images of him: helping her save Mr Asquith from a watery grave; offering her first bite of a shiny red apple; his eyes softening as he leaned forward to kiss her; his face alight with love and wonder when he had seen Grace for the first time...

  With a sob, she drew her knees up and let her head fall forward. I need you to be strong. She had. been strong. For Robbie, for Grace, for herself, for Peter, for everybody. She was tired of being strong. It had been easier while the war was on. Then there had seemed to be some purpose to her life. Now there didn’t: Was there any point in living on without him? Grace was almost a woman now, about to start at the Art School. Soon she wouldn’t need her mother.

  The breeze danced on the nape of her neck. It was the lightest of touches, like a couple of fingertips delicately brushing her hair to one side. It happened again. Slowly Kate raised her tear-stained face and looked into the middle of the great circle of stones. With an exclamation, she dashed away the moisture from her eyes. It was making her see things.

  Two figures stood there, some distance away from her. Then, without any apparent movement, they were right in front of her. She was dreaming. She must be. His smile, however, was just as she remembered it - wide and slow, lighting up his grey eyes as he looked at her.

  You daft bisom, you’ve still got work to do, but I’ll be waiting for you once you’re done.

  She heard the words in her head. Her eyes went to the other figure. A handsome young man, tall and straight, with a smile just like his father’s.

  The voice in her head came once more. Neil James, of course. Who else did you think it would be? She could hear the rumble of amusement. He’s a fine lad, this son of ours.

  Her heart full, she stretched out a hand. Could this really be happening? She had felt that feather-light touch - she knew she had. The figures were fading.

  We’ll be waiting for you...

  She was alone again. The stone circle was empty. There was only the wind and the sun on her face and the plaintive cry of a bird, hidden somewhere in the heather.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate softly, the words directed to whoever was listening. ‘Thank you.’

  Kate took a step back and looked critically at the arrangement of her plates and bowls on the felt-covered table. She’d sold quite a lot today, and got an order for wall plaques from a city-centre shop - but it meant there were a few gaps now in her display. Never mind. Jessie, off school for the Christmas holidays, was going to help her bring some more stuff in tomorrow.

  Thinking of her sister, Kate sighed. Some things just didn’t work out. Andrew Baxter hadn’t got himself killed in his second war against fascism either, but he’d come home from it with a wife - a cheerful girl from York called Gwen. Like generations of her family before and since, Jessie Cameron had risen to the occasion, congratulating the newly-weds and shaking them both warmly by the hand.

  ‘It would be easier,’ she had confessed to Kate afterwards, ‘if I could hate her, but she’s a really nice girl.’ Only then, in privacy, had she burst into tears and cried it all out on Kate’s shoulder.

  That’s what shoulders are for. Kate moved a small bowl from the side of the table to the middle and smiled. He was never very far from her thoughts. You’ve got work to do. Well, she was doing it now. She hoped he would be proud of her if he could see her. She smiled again. Maybe he could.

  Even with her paintings beginning to fetch good prices, it had been a financial struggle to set herself up in business: buying the kiln and the other equipment, renting a small workshop, paying out for the clay. She was getting there though, pleased as punch to have been invited to exhibit her pottery at this pre-Christmas arts and crafts fair in Glasgow. Still working part-time at Brown’s - she couldn’t afford to give her notice in quite yet - life was hard going but satisfying. And she had good friends.

  ‘Friends,’ Peter had said in a flat voice, when she had come back from the Orkneys and to
ld him that no meant no. ‘You want us to stay friends.’ Then he had relented and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I suppose so. If I’m allowed to do that occasionally, and to walk arm in arm with you now and again.’

  Kate had wanted to cry.

  ‘You’re a good man, Peter Watt.’

  ‘Och, aye,’ he had said in a resigned tone. ‘It’s a pity I’m no’ a Catholic. Otherwise you could have put me forward to the Pope for canonization.’

  He did deliveries for her at the weekends and Grace helped out when she could, although her own art studies kept her busy. Kate had no complaints about that. From the looks of it, her daughter was developing into a fine portrait painter.

  She moved the bowl back to its original position. Esmé MacGregor had bought a larger version of the same design that morning and had tried to make Kate take the money for it. Frances Noble, looking on with a smile, had advised her friend to give up the fight.

  ‘Don’t you remember my telling you about a very stubborn pupil of mine? The girl who never gave up?’

  Kate had won, of course, insisting that the bowl had to be a gift - a thanks for everything the two women had done for her. She was glad she had vindicated their faith in her, even if it had taken her a long time to do so.

  Making a final adjustment to her display, Kate turned - and found herself face to face with Marjorie Drummond.

  ‘Oh, Kate!’ she said, her thin face lighting up with pleasure. ‘It is you! I saw the poster about the craft fair outside the hall and I wondered if you might be here. Come and have tea with me.’

  Dumbfounded, Kate could only stare at her. Marjorie actually sounded pleased to see her.

  ‘What about Jack?’ she got out at last, peering cautiously over Marjorie’s shoulder. ‘Is he with you?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Marjorie cheerfully. ‘I left him in South Africa. We sat the war out down there.’ She lifted her shoulders in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘At this moment I should imagine he’s with his new wife in Cape Town - another rich man’s daughter. Now, isn’t that a surprise?’ She smiled wryly. ‘That seems to be Jack’s type. Only she’s not as gullible as I was. I give them five years - maybe not even that long.’

  Kate was still having difficulty in speaking.

  ‘Close your mouth, Kate, you’ll catch flies,’ said Marjorie, an impish grin spreading over her face. ‘I divorced him,’ she added calmly. ‘He was a rat.’

  Kate stared at her. Then she began to chuckle.

  ‘Y-yes, he was, wasn’t he?’ Her laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started, and her voice grew wistful. ‘But don’t you hate me, Marjorie? For what I did to you?’

  ‘Oh, Kate,’ Marjorie said. ‘You didn’t do anything to me - he did. With a little help from Suzanne Douglas. She’s out there too. I don’t think Jack’s new wife cares very much for the way she hangs around - especially when she’s supposed to be married to someone else.’ Marjorie’s smile was once more rueful. ‘I can’t say I blame the new Mrs Drummond. I didn’t care for that very much either.’

  ‘Oh, Marjorie,’ said Kate, her face full of sympathy for her old friend.

  ‘You didn’t do anything to me, Kate,’ Marjorie repeated softly. ‘He did it to both of us.’ She stepped forward, flung her arms around Kate’s neck and gave her a hug.

  ‘You’re not crying, Kate, are you? Oh, drat, so am I!’ She fished a handkerchief out of her neat little bag. ‘Here, you’d better use it first. Now come on, Mrs Baxter. Get someone else to look after your stand for an hour. You and I have matters to discuss.’

  ‘We do?’

  Marjorie’s smile grew a little tentative. ‘How do you fancy taking me on as a partner, Kate? I’ve a good business head. I used to run a pottery studio, you know,’ she said wryly. ‘And I’ve still got a little capital. I’ve even thought up a name for us - the Phoenix Pottery. To symbolize a new start after the war, and a new start for the two of us.’

  A slow smile spread across Kate’s face. ‘I had forgotten how persuasive you can be.’

  Marjorie grinned and stuck out her hand. Kate took it - and the Phoenix Pottery was born.

  Epilogue 1997

  Kate was drifting in and out of consciousness. She had always heard that hearing was the last of the five senses to go. That seemed to be true. Her vision was certainly fading, although she could make out a square of light which must be a window. When they’d brought her in here last week she had asked the nurse if you could see the river through it, the hospital being a tall, modern building and the floor she was on so high up.

  ‘The whole of the Clyde Valley,’ the girl had confirmed. ‘New York on a clear day. Depending on what you’ve been drinking the night before, of course!’

  This town is full of comedians. That was right enough.

  She was still aware of touch, had known it when the doctor had sat on her bed, held her hand and called her by her first name. Always a bad sign, that.

  ‘Can you hear me, Kathleen?’ the young woman had said.

  ‘Kate,’ Grace had corrected. ‘She’s never been called Kathleen.’ But Grace was wrong. There had been two people who had called her Kathleen ...

  She thought she knew who was in the room with her - Jessie, of course. Davie and his family had visited last week, while she had still been able to talk to them. That had been good. Her Baxter nieces and nephews had been in too. They were a lively bunch.

  Pearl had sent a card and a huge bouquet of flowers. She lived in Birmingham now - a respectable widow as far as her neighbours were concerned. That’s all they knew.

  Grace was here, with her children and two grown-up granddaughters. Not young Michael, of course. His mother had brought him in last week, but he would be with her and his baby sister today. Better, by far, that he remember his Grandma Kate from that trip they’d had down the coast last summer. That had been a lovely day ...

  Michael’s father was sitting by the bed, now and again lifting his hand to gently stroke his grandmother’s forehead and smooth her hair back from her brow. That felt nice.

  Kate’s eyes were closed, but she was still aware through her closed lids of the light from the window. They were talking about her, going over her life. Another bad sign.

  ‘So why did Grandma Kate and Uncle Peter never get married?’

  ‘I think,’ said Grace slowly, ‘because she wouldn’t. She was devoted to your great-grandfather, you know. That was a real love match. You’ve seen that painting I did of him, haven’t you?’

  Ah yes, the portrait of Robbie. Grace had caught him exactly - casual in unbuttoned waistcoat, collarless shirt and rolled-up sleeves, his hair tousled. He was in the act of turning, and he was smiling, a twinkle in his grey eyes.

  ‘Mmm,’ came the appreciative answer. That was young Barbara, who’d taken over from Kate at the Phoenix Pottery, running it along with one of her Baxter cousins. ‘I’ve always thought Grandad Robert looks dead sexy in that picture!’

  They all laughed. Well, Robbie would have laughed at that too.

  He was a real person to them all because of that portrait, hung in pride of place in their Grandma Kate’s home. They often talked of him - asked about his writing, asked about his life. They spoke of how half the family had taken after Kate by going in for art or pottery, while the other half had become journalists - taking after Grandad Robert. Kate always smiled when she heard them say that.

  ‘I was only ten when he died.’ Grace’s voice was very soft.

  ‘So how did you manage the portrait, then?’

  ‘Well, I had the old photos ... but it was how I remembered him too. Life was hard back then, but he always had time for me. He used to take me out for walks, pointed things out, told me stories ...’ Grace’s voice had grown softer still, ‘... and whenever he saw your Grandma Kate, his whole face just lit up.’

  ‘So you don’t think she and Uncle Peter ever ... you know...’

  That was Barbara again. Cheeky wee bisom. No, there had never been anything like that betw
een her and Peter, but he’d been a faithful companion to her over the years, and she had missed him after he’d gone.

  ‘So exactly when did Grandma and Aunt Marjorie start the Phoenix Pottery?’ That was Barbara’s sister. Asking a journalist’s question.

  ‘A couple of years after the war,’ said Grace.

  ‘But I thought they had worked together before that. In the 1930s.’ The reporter in action. Always trying to get at the truth. Just like Robbie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace vaguely. ‘Do you remember anything about that, Aunt Jess? I think there was some sort of a falling-out.’

  Well, that was one way of putting it. They didn’t know the half of it.

  ‘Look,’ said Michael’s father. ‘She’s smiling.’

  ‘Maybe we’d better watch what we say then!’

  The voices faded. How strange, that her family should have come to call Marjorie Aunt. She had missed her too these past few years. Even after Marjorie had married again - to a straightforward and uncomplicated man who worshipped the ground she walked on - the friendship between her and Kate had strengthened and deepened.

  They had made a go of the Phoenix Pottery too, pulling off the difficult trick of being commercially successful and critically acclaimed. It was a good feeling to think that you were leaving something beautiful behind you, that you had done your work well.

  The voices came back again, like someone turning the sound up on a radio. They were laughing softly. She had missed the joke. Damn.

  She was walking by the river, coming up to the rowan tree. She took a deep breath. That felt good. The air was clean and clear. The river was clean too, much more now than it had ever been in her young day, flowing to the sea, flowing as her life had done, always coming back to the same place.

  ‘Kathleen,’ he said.

  He was standing under the rowan tree.