The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  She stiffened, determined not to show any anxiety. ‘We both thought a bike was too expensive a present--’

  ‘I’m not talking about the bike,’ he rapped out, then lowered his voice again. ‘I’m talking about the little matter of my . . . insensitivity to poor Margaret’s feelings in subjecting her to the company of Matthew and Veronica. “It might be better if you left it for a bit before calling again. Give her time to adjust after the last miss. She must be feeling it.”’ He mimicked David’s voice sneeringly. ‘David thought of that himself, did he?’

  ‘Someone had to.’

  He walked further into the kitchen, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Why don’t you like me, Carrie?’ he asked softly. ‘I thought you did once.’

  She had known this day would come, the day when he would mention what had happened between them, but she found she still wasn’t prepared. Her hands were gripping her dress but her voice was firm when she said, ‘I didn’t know you then.’

  ‘I thought we got to know each other very well.’

  ‘One short encounter? I think not.’ She heard herself dismiss the pain and anguish and horror of what had happened to her that night with inward amazement, but at the same time she instinctively knew that to show any emotion would be fatal with this man. He was looking for a chink in her armour. Now she came to think of it he had been looking for a long time.

  ‘I married the wrong woman, didn’t I?’

  She hadn’t expected this. Her brows came together.

  ‘I thought I was going to have it all and do you know what I’ve got, Carrie?’

  ‘Please, Alec, I’ve things to do.’ She wanted to turn round and continue with what she’d been doing when he came into the room, but she found she didn’t dare turn her back on him. He was in a funny mood, she hadn’t seen this side to him before and she wasn’t sure what was coming next.

  ‘A big grand house with eight bedrooms and a separate wing for the servants - servants no less’ - the self-mockery was acidic - ‘and not one bairn in any of them.’

  Carrie blinked. ‘I’m sure Margaret feels it as much as you do.’

  ‘Margaret!’ It was insultingly dismissive.

  ‘Don’t be like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ He was standing in the middle of the room but she felt one wrong word or action from her would bring him to her side, and if he touched her she would scream. It wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do but she couldn’t bear the thought of his laying so much as a finger on her. ‘She’s a dried-up, barren stick of a woman and she drives me mad with her pills and potions and--’ He stopped abruptly, running his hand through his hair so it stood up on end. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like.’

  He was pouting like a spoilt child. But then any resemblance to a child was swept away when he said, ‘I could have had you’ - again his eyes swept over her hair and face and body, but this time there was despair mixed with naked desire in his face - ‘and we would have made a go of it. You’ve got guts, determination - look at how you’ve got on this far and you aren’t finished yet, are you? You’ll be in one of those houses overlooking Mowbray Park or out Hendon way before you’re done.’

  ‘David and I--’

  ‘David!’ He dismissed his brother in the same way he’d dismissed his wife. ‘He’s a nowt, a numbskull like Walter and my da. You’ll have to drag him up by his coat-tails and you know it, same as I do.’

  ‘Don’t you dare talk about David like that.’

  He stared into her angry face for some moments, the green of his eyes made all the more striking by the thick black lashes surrounding them, and then he seemed to relax, even smiling slightly as he said, ‘Don’t play the fond wife. We both know why you married David.’

  As soon as she said, ‘And why was that?’ she knew she’d given him the opportunity he’d been waiting for.

  ‘Because you were expecting my bairn.’

  React, react. Get mad. Throw something. Her brain was sending messages but she felt numb.

  ‘You handled him well, I’ll give you that. But like I said, you’ve got guts. Did he really believe he was the father? Or was he so desperate to keep you he pretended to believe it?’

  ‘He is David’s.’

  ‘No, Carrie, Matthew is my son. I’ve known it all along, long before he came “early”. An eight-pounder two months early? Who did you think you’d fool? And that’s why you don’t want me round here, isn’t it? You couldn’t give a fig for Margaret’s finer feelings. You’re scared to death every time Matthew sees me, and why? Because he senses something, young as he is - a link between us, a bond that’s a blood thing.’

  ‘Uncle and nephew,’ she cut in shakily. ‘And you spoil him.’

  ‘If I never gave him another thing, there would still be something there, there always was. He’s mine, my son.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be saying this if you and Margaret had had bairns. Because of all that’s happened you’ve convinced yourself Matthew is yours, that’s what it is.’

  ‘You can deny it until you’re blue in the face but I know what I know. I was the first and the dates fit perfectly. He is mine. What I don’t know is whether you convinced my poor sop of a brother he was the first.’

  She gazed at him without speaking, hating him. Perhaps he saw something of this in her face or maybe her silence caught him on the raw, but suddenly he was at her side, his hands gripping her arms. ‘I’m warning you, don’t try and keep me away from him, Carrie. I need him. I have to see him.’

  ‘Let go, you’re hurting me.’

  As she struggled his hands bit into her flesh even more. His voice was low as he said, ‘I’ll wreck your life if I have to, I swear it.’ And then, as though someone had flicked a switch, his face changed and his voice became thick with emotion. ‘I don’t want it to be like this between us, damn it. I dream of you, do you know that? Night after night. I don’t believe you’re happy with David, you can’t be.’

  ‘Let go!’ She jerked away with such force she hit her hip on the corner of the kitchen table. Her face blanched with the pain but her eyes were blazing as she said, ‘You lay another finger on me and I’ll scream the place down, do you hear me? And what will Matthew think of his precious Uncle Alec then? You can’t prove anything of what you think because it’s all make-believe, it’s not true. And David does know he wasn’t the first if you want to know, so you can’t throw that at him. He might not have been the first but he is the father of my child, so there.’

  For a second, just a second, she saw a flicker of uncertainty in his face, but then, as he stepped back from her, it faded. ‘You’re lying,’ he said softly. ‘Everything about you, the way you’ve been over the last years, tells me that.’

  ‘You raped me, Alec.’ She stared at him, the colour coming back into her face. ‘Was I supposed to be glad to see you?’

  ‘Rape’s an ugly word.’

  ‘It was an ugly act.’

  ‘I don’t remember it like that.’ His voice was very soft now, even wistful. ‘I remember it as something wonderful.’

  He was trying to charm her! He actually thought he could turn on the spiel and she would fall for it. His arrogance was breathtaking. ‘Get out of this kitchen.’

  ‘And I saw your face that day in Mam’s house when I said I was going to marry Margaret. You knew then, didn’t you? Maybe you’d even come to tell me, I don’t know, but you knew well enough. And the next thing is you’re married to David.’

  He turned and walked to the door, and she prayed she’d remain strong long enough to conceal the trembling which was threatening to overwhelm her.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘Don’t try and separate me from him, Carrie, because you’ll regret it if you do. I don’t give a damn about David or Margaret either. All I care about is Matthew . . . and you.’

  ‘And Mr Reed?’ She flung the name at him. ‘What would Mr Reed do if you brought your ridiculous claim out into the open and hurt Margaret? You’d be out on your ear
quicker than you could say Jack Robinson.’

  ‘Maybe I’d consider it worth it.’

  ‘Losing everything you’ve worked so hard for during the last ten years?’ She forced a sneering laugh. ‘Putting up with all you say you’ve had to put up with?’

  ‘A husband has certain rights--’

  ‘He would drum you out of town and you know it, rights or no rights. Every decent door would be closed to you and he’d make sure your name was dirt. All the money in the world can’t buy back a reputation once it’s gone. You’d perhaps be left with plenty in the bank but your life would be in shreds.’

  Alec shrugged. ‘If a man gets desperate enough there’s no knowing what he’ll do,’ he said softly. ‘So, think on, lass. All I’m asking is that you leave things as they are. The occasional visit from a loving uncle and aunt isn’t too much to ask, is it?’

  And he walked out of the room, shutting the door very quietly behind him.

  ‘I might be wrong but I got the impression our Carrie wasn’t overjoyed at Alec gettin’ the bairn that bike.’

  Joan glanced at her husband as she walked across the room. She pushed the kettle further into the coals before taking off her coat and hat. ‘Why was that then?’ she asked.

  ‘You mean you didn’t notice anythin’?’

  Joan shrugged. ‘There’s always an edge when Alec and Margaret are there but then Alec’s never got on with David and Walter, has he? You know that. And him rising in the world might be a thorn in David’s flesh.’

  ‘It’s not David I’m talkin’ about.’

  ‘What affects David, affects Carrie. She’s his wife, Sandy. They love each other.’

  Sandy hunched his shoulders. David had ruined Carrie’s life taking her down like that and here was Joan talking about love, but that was a woman all over. He didn’t know a man alive who could fathom the way their minds worked.

  Brushing the past aside for a moment, he returned to what was bothering him. ‘The lass wasn’t herself today, Joan, I’m tellin’ you. I reckon Alec is tryin’ to get his oar in.’

  ‘With our Carrie, you mean?’

  ‘Aye. I reckon he’s sweet on her an’ all this fuss he makes of Matt might be a means of gettin’ his feet under the table.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you.’ Joan came over to him and put her arms round his neck. Her voice was indulgent as she said, ‘Look, m’lad, you might think the ground turns holy if our Carrie walks on it, but not everyone is of like mind. She’s his sister-in-law and Matthew is his nephew, and likely he enjoys having a bairn to spoil. You know how things are with Margaret.’

  ‘Aye, I do.’ He gave her a look. ‘You only have to see the pair of them together to guess at how things are behind closed doors.’

  ‘I meant about them not being able to have their own babby,’ Joan said reprovingly. ‘What’s the point in having all that money if he can’t spend a bit on his brothers’ bairns? He’s perhaps thinking an uncle is all he’s ever going to be.’

  ‘So you think I’m worrin’ unduly?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’ Joan rested her head against his shoulder.

  He hoped she was right. Sandy said no more, but he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling, which had been growing steadily for some months now, that Carrie was on edge about something. But she was a grown woman, a wife and mother, and gone were the days when he could sit her on his knee and charm away her tears with a slab of toffee or a bag of bullets, more’s the pity. He sighed loudly. This business of having bairns wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘They’re stupid, the lot of them. Do you really think the government is going to listen to a load of ragtag and bobtail working men with their backsides hanging out just because they march from one end of the country to the other, carrying an oak box?’

  ‘Over eleven thousand people have signed that petition.’

  ‘So? What’s the betting Baldwin won’t even look at it when they get to London? It’s just a waste of good shoe leather.’ Renee glared at her husband, hands on hips and chin stuck forward.

  ‘There’s times I think you’ve forgotten where you’ve come from now you’ve got this forewoman’s job,’ Walter said grimly.

  Renee tossed her head and threw herself down in the armchair in front of the range. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said, more coolly now.

  ‘You were forever rabbiting on about the working man’s rights when we were first wed, and now when there’s families living on bread and gravy or going into the workhouse, and men topping themselves rather than having to face hearing their bairns crying with hunger or going through the means test, you say it’s stupid to protest. You say they’re stupid. I don’t know how you’ve got the gall.’

  ‘It was working women’s rights I “rabbited” about,’ Renee corrected without raising her head. She sipped at the cup of tea she had poured herself before the row had begun.

  ‘Aye, well, like as it’s the same thing in these times.’

  ‘It’s never the same thing. Men like you still think all a wife is good for is to stay at home and get their dinner, regardless of how intelligent she is.’

  ‘An’ you think you’re intelligent, do you?’

  ‘Aye, I do. Too intelligent to agree it’s very bright to march all them miles to London in October when they’ll be sleeping rough most of the time. Look how bad you were when you did the Durham march.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’

  It was bitter, very bitter, and Renee looked up at him. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t start,’ she said in a bored tone. ‘By the way, I shan’t be home till late tomorrow so I’ll leave something cold in the pantry for you and Veronica. Me and a couple of the girls from the factory are going to the Empire after work. There’s a new Laurel and Hardy on.’

  ‘We can’t afford it.’

  ‘No, we can’t but I can.’

  Walter gritted his teeth. ‘The bairn needs her boots mending and we’re out of leather.’

  ‘They’ll do another few days.’

  ‘They won’t, her feet were blue when she came in earlier and it’s been sleeting today. She needs--’

  ‘For crying out loud!’ Renee leaped up out of her seat, her voice high. ‘If she needs them mending then go and buy the leather yourself.’

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like better and you know it.’ The effort it was taking Walter to hold on to his temper showed in the veins bulging on his forehead. ‘But with only a couple of shifts last week--’

  ‘You can’t,’ Renee finished for him, her voice scathing. ‘Then you’ll have to wait until I can, won’t you? But I tell you one thing, Walter. I work hard for my money and like I’ve said before, it’s not all going on you and Veronica. I deserve to get out of this house now and then.’

  ‘Now and then? You’re hardly ever in it. The bairn needs to see more of you, you’re little more than a stranger to her.’

  ‘Don’t you come that, Walter Sutton.’ Renee’s head was pushed forward and she glared at her husband. ‘Right from the beginning I said I didn’t want bairns.’

  ‘But she came.’

  ‘Aye, she came all right and it was no accident, not on your part, was it? So you got what you wanted.’

  ‘And I thank my lucky stars for her every day. I’d have been in the asylum living with you all these years if the bairn hadn’t been around.’

  ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t have been around but for her. Who in their right mind would choose to stay with a weak-kneed scut like you! You’re not a man, you’re nothing! A nowt! All wind and--’

  Walter moved without thinking and hit her. The blow propelled her backwards into the seat she’d just vacated. For a moment Renee lay there, stunned and silent, and then she scrambled to her feet, her hand to the side of her burning face. ‘I hate you, do you know that?’ she hissed. ‘With every bit of me I hate you. I wish you was dead.’

  ‘Mam?’

  The voice from the doorway brought both pai
rs of eyes turning as one. Walter died a thousand deaths as he looked at his daughter’s white face, everything within him crying out in protest. Veronica ran to her mother, burying her face in Renee’s skirt and Renee looked him full in the face, satisfaction in every line of her body. ‘Come on, me bairn,’ she said, her voice softer than Walter had heard it in a long time and her eyes still watching his stricken face. ‘This is no place for you. Mam will take you up to bed.’

  And still holding the child against her, she led Veronica out of the room.

  ‘You all right, man?’

  Four days later David was standing with his father and brother outside Jarrow’s Christ Church where two hundred marchers had just filed in for a special service, along with those wives and mothers who could attend. Beneath the threadbare clothes each man was as clean and fresh as soap and water would allow, newly shaven, their Sunday caps on their heads. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, the mayor, and other corporation officials had led the way, and the Bishop of Jarrow was taking the service.