The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  ‘Oh, David.’ She stared at him, her eyes wide. ‘How do they seem?’

  If he had spoken the truth at this point he would have said, ‘Grim.’ As it was, he shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, but I think it might be wise for your mother to take care of the bairns for a while.’

  Carrie’s hand went to her throat. ‘All right, but ask Mam to come up here and take them after we have introduced them to their brother.’ She was not going to apologise to her son for her other children, neither was she going to spirit them away as though she and David had done something shameful.

  David nodded.

  ‘You’ll stay with me?’ Carrie asked in a tone which immediately brought him to her side. ‘When they come up?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Her throat swelled at the love in his eyes, and she held on to his hands for a moment before he went downstairs. She must not let emotion get the better of her now. She had to carry this off whatever happened. She was not going to snivel or beg or plead. She had done nothing wrong except to love Matthew with all her heart and soul from the moment he was born.

  Footsteps on the stairs outside warned her they were here. David was the first one to enter the room. Alec followed him, then her mother, and Matthew made up the rear. The twins, sensing the atmosphere and a little over-awed, clung to Carrie’s skirt instead of running to their grandmother as they would normally have done.

  ‘Hello, Alec. Hello, Matthew,’ Carrie said, before bending down to the twins. ‘This is Uncle Alec and your brother, Matthew.’ Two little bewildered faces stared up at her. ‘Say hello.’

  Two heads buried themselves in her skirt, and now Joan bustled across, saying briskly, ‘I’ll take them down to the girls for a minute or two, you know how they love that. Come on, my pets. A little bird’s told me there’s a tin of fudge downstairs. Shall we go and find it?’

  She had said the magic words and the twins trotted off quite happily, leaving Alec and Matthew standing just inside the sitting-room door. Carrie looked at them. The contrast in their colouring was stark, otherwise she was looking at two peas in a pod. Matthew had changed considerably in the last year and his father’s genes were now strongly in evidence. She forced herself to say politely, ‘Sit down, both of you. Would you like a cup of tea?’ even as she wanted to run across the room and take Matthew’s stiff body in her arms and beg him to listen to her.

  ‘No tea, thank you.’ Alec made no move to take the proffered seat, and neither did Matthew. David moved closer to Carrie and took her elbow in his hand. They stood facing the other two.

  ‘Matthew has something to say to you, Carrie.’

  Alec glanced at his son and, on cue, Matthew spoke up. ‘I’m sorry that I repeated the things Gran said to Veronica and I’ll write and say so. I should have checked with you before I said anything.’ He was looking at her and speaking as though to a stranger. Nothing she had experienced this far was as painful. She couldn’t speak, and after a long pause it was David who responded.

  ‘I hope you know it was a pack of lies.’

  Matthew nodded, his acute embarrassment becoming obvious for the first time when he stammered, ‘I . . . I didn’t know how Gran was then.’

  This was awful, worse than she could have imagined. She shouldn’t have written to him. Her eyes moved from her son’s red face to Alec’s, and the green eyes were waiting for her. He cleared his throat.

  ‘We were planning to come and see you even before we got your letter,’ he said quietly.

  Something in his voice brought Carrie’s heart racing. Whatever Alec was going to say she was not going to like it, she could tell.

  ‘My health has not been too good this winter. My doctor has advised me I should think about going somewhere warm.’

  ‘You’re going on holiday?’ She was surprised, she had thought he was going to say something terrible.

  ‘Not exactly, no.’ Alec cleared his throat. It was clear he was finding this difficult.

  Carrie saw Matthew glance at him, and then he said, speaking directly to her, ‘The doctor said he wouldn’t survive another winter and spring like the one we’ve just had, that’s the truth of it. What he went through has weakened his chest too badly.’

  Carrie stared at Matthew, her head whirling. What were they saying? She wanted to ask them to make themselves clear but she didn’t want to hear the explanation.

  David drew Carrie more closely into his side. ‘Do I take it you intend to leave the country?’

  Alec nodded. ‘I’ve sold the business, the properties, everything, ’ he said quickly. ‘There’s no point in being the richest man in the graveyard, is there?’

  Carrie was frozen, her eyes locked on the face of her son. He was going away, and not just to another part of the country but to another part of the world. She wanted to ask a hundred questions but couldn’t force one past the lump in her throat.

  ‘We’re going to travel for a while.’ This was the first spark of animation Matthew had shown. ‘France, Italy, most of Europe, and then we’re going to America.’

  ‘America?’ David looked past Matthew to Alec. ‘Why America?’

  ‘I’ve a friend there, in California. He wants me - us’ - he corrected himself with a quick smile at Matthew and the intimacy and easy comradeship hit Carrie like a punch in the solar plexus - ‘to go into business with him. I thought it was just talk when we spoke of it in the camp; you dream to keep yourself going in those places, but a couple of months ago Marvin contacted me and it appears he’s serious. It seems the perfect solution.’

  The perfect solution? Carrie said, very quietly, ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘In a few days’ time. We want to get away before the bad weather.’ Matthew was more subdued now, his eyes holding hers.

  Carrie wasn’t aware of her stricken expression, but when Alec said, ‘We’ll let you have our address once we’re settled of course, we mustn’t lose touch,’ she stared at him as though he had spoken in a foreign language. With every fibre of her being she wanted to fling her arms round Matthew and hug him tightly, she wanted to beg him not to go, not to leave her without hope. Because she knew and he knew that this was what they were talking about. America, the other side of the world. She might never see him again.

  She took a deep breath, glad of David’s arm round her. ‘I’ve always only wanted your happiness, Matthew,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I hope in time you will understand that.’

  ‘I know.’

  She saw him take a deep breath, and then he said, ‘Don’t take on, Mam, this is what I want. It’s . . . it’s the best thing all round.’

  No, no it wasn’t. She continued to stare into his beloved face but she couldn’t speak, and then as she saw him move forward and hold out his arms, she went into them like a homing pigeon.

  ‘I’m sorry, Matthew. For not telling you, for the pit, everything. ’ She was conscious of how tall he was as he held her, how broad, but with the tears streaming down her face she couldn’t see clearly. She loved him so much it was a physical pain in her chest.

  ‘I know,’ he said again.

  She could feel his heart beating as he held her. Her head rested in the hollow of his throat and she could smell the fresh clean fragrance emanating from his shirt. Freda Browell obviously took pride in the laundry. It was a ridiculous thought for such a moment.

  She had to control herself, she had to make it easy for this young man who was now six inches taller than she was and who had already left for foreign shores in his mind. She hugged him one last time before willing herself to step away. She drew her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face. ‘Will I see you again before you go?’ she asked shakily.

  There was a slight pause and then Matthew said, his voice a little gruff, ‘We’re travelling down to London tomorrow morning and spending a few days seeing the sights before we go.’

  She nodded, unable to answer.

  ‘Carrie?’ As her gaze swung to Alec, he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
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  She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to tell him he was taking her boy, her firstborn, and that it wasn’t fair. None of it had been fair. But as she stared into the pale, drawn face of the man watching her, she knew this was not the Alec of twenty years ago. That man had gone, and the one standing in his place was not a monster. What she read in his eyes enabled her to say, ‘If the doctor has said you must go, you must go.’

  Alec’s eyes roamed over her face. ‘I promise you if there was another way I would take it, but contrary to how I felt before I came home, I’ve found I want to live. I would prefer it to be in England but beggars can’t be choosers.’

  Carrie found she could look at him without inwardly flinching for the first time since that night when she had been fifteen. ‘Hardly a beggar.’

  ‘Not in terms of wealth, no.’

  She understood what he was trying to say, but then, because she couldn’t hold the words back, she said, ‘But you have Matthew.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have Matthew. And you have David and your family.’

  When it was time, they all walked downstairs together. On the doorstep the men shook hands, and as Matthew bent and brushed her forehead with his lips, she said, ‘I love you. I always have and I always will. Remember that if nothing else, won’t you?’

  He looked down at her and for a moment the boy was back. The little lad who used to rush in from school shouting for a shive of bread and dripping, his words spilling out as he told her about his day, or the sleepy child cuddled into her as she told him a bedtime story.

  ‘I’ll remember,’ he said.

  For a heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to say he loved her too, but then he turned and walked away from her with Alec, and but for David holding her up she would have crumpled to the floor.

  A moment later she had pulled herself together sufficiently to straighten. She would not let the last image he had of her be one of pathos. There would be time for tears later, all the time in the world, in fact. But oh, if she never saw his face again . . .

  She watched as Alec and Matthew reached the large car parked at the side of the road, and it was Alec who turned to wave before climbing into the passenger seat. This was it, they were going. She held herself rigidly, her eyes fixed on her son.

  Matthew had actually started the engine and the car was beginning to move when suddenly it stopped and all became quiet again. Her heart thumping a tattoo, Carrie saw him say something to Alec who nodded, and then he was coming towards her again. She wanted to fly to meet him but she didn’t, and when he was in front of her she remained quite still.

  ‘I’ll write, Mam. I promise.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Aye.’ His voice was gruff. ‘Don’t worry.’

  She inclined her head at this because once more she couldn’t speak but then his arms were round her again, briefly this time, and the gruffness was more pronounced as he said, ‘Goodbye, Mam. I love you.’

  Carrie watched the car drive away through a mist of tears. She blinked furiously, becoming aware for the first time that she was holding on to David’s arm with all her might. ‘Do you think I’ll ever see him again?’

  David did not know the answer to this, but he said, ‘Of course you will, love,’ his voice warm as he brushed a strand of hair from her damp cheek.

  She had to believe that. And she had to keep believing it in the long months and years ahead.

  David moved her into him, encircling her body with his arms, and he echoed her son’s words as he said, ‘It’ll be all right.’

  Oh, she loved this man. Carrie looked into the concerned brown eyes and reached up to stroke his face, oblivious of passers-by. As long as David was at her side she would be able to bear whatever came. The love of her children might wane, but never his. Matthew was gone from her, and only time would tell if he would keep the promise he had made. But she had hope, and she would cling to it, that and her David’s love. The most precious thing.

  The Most Precious Thing

  RITA BRADSHAW

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