Kate took the first opportunity to suggest to Callum that he must be patient. ‘Time will gradually resolve this sense of strangeness between the two of you. Eliot does care about you, very much.’
The boy said nothing, merely stared at her in sulky silence as he so often did.
He might be difficult, yet he was her son and she loved him. ‘I ask only that you think how strange this must all be for Eliot too, after all he has been through these last years. Give him a chance to settle.’
‘And what about me? What about what I’ve been through?’
‘I know, m’cushla. I understand. Trust me, it will all work out in the end. We need to allow ourselves time to get to know each other again, that’s all.’
‘I dun’t want to get to know Lucy again, thanks all t’same.’
‘No, no, of course you don’t, me darlin’. ’Tis unthinkable!’
And there was another if only. If only Kate had called the constabulary when she’d learned of her sister-in-law’s despicable crime. Instead Kate had turned her out of the house, thinking that would be shame enough for her snobbish sister-in-law. She hadn’t felt that it was her place to call in the police. The aunts would have hated a family scandal, and Eliot wasn’t around to make the decision.
Where Lucy had lived since then Kate neither knew nor greatly cared, though from snippets of conversation she’d overheard between the aunts, she rather thought Lucy was now occupying their old home in Heversham. Whatever she’d been doing, wherever she’d been these last two years, now she was back, interfering in their lives as she so loved to do.
Kate could only hope that she no longer had vengeance on her mind.
Now she smiled at Callum. ‘I won’t ask anything of you that is unreasonable, but I’m trusting you to be man enough to forget the past, to put it behind you and make a fresh start. All right?’
The boy said nothing, merely put his hands in his pockets and slunk away.
‘I’ve had a word with him, so I have,’ Kate informed Eliot. ‘Give him a little time and he’ll come round. Isn’t he feeling just a bit shy and awkward?’
‘He was downright rude, Kate. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with such ill manners.’
‘I do realise that but he’s sorry. He’ll be fine, you’ll see. You both need time, to be sure, these things can’t be rushed.’
Kate insisted that Eliot rest and recuperate, that he do nothing, that even the business be left to its own devices for a while until he felt fully recovered and ready to take up the reins again.
‘And how will it survive meanwhile, may I ask?’
‘Toby will look after it, though I’ll pop in each morning for an hour or two, while you are sleeping.’
‘Toby?’
‘Toby Lynch, my foreman, if you remember? Since our two businesses merged, he’s been vital to the smooth running of the entire company. I simply couldn’t manage without him. He was instrumental in helping me deal with the unions just a year or two back: making a new agreement for a fifty-hour week and one week’s paid holiday a year. Oh, and that we pay time and a half for overtime.’
‘Whose side is he on?’
Kate laughed. ‘Ours, of course. A happy workforce makes for full production. With the war over, there’s general concern that there might be a slump, now that orders for army boots have dried up. We do need to talk about the factory, Eliot, but not just yet. First you must rest and get properly fit and well.’
Kate was already turning over plans in her mind for how to counteract this downturn. She was keen to concentrate on the women’s market. To produce more stylish shoes, as well as keeping up with the usual riding boots, working boots and classic gentlemen’s lines.
Once Eliot was fully recovered from his trauma, she would enjoy discussing these ideas with him. Perhaps a part of her hoped that she wouldn’t be entirely put out to grass. She still felt that she had much to contribute, that they could work together as a good team.
Kate enjoyed looking after her husband, fussing over him endlessly, bringing him cushions and cups of tea and insisting Mrs Petty make all his favourite dishes. She bought him a walking stick too, which he absolutely refused to use.
‘I can walk perfectly well.’
‘Indeed you cannot! Don’t be stubborn, Eliot, I can see how that leg pains you. The stick will help until you get your strength back.’
She put it in the rack by the front door but he never used it, and when she remonstrated with him again, telling him he was hobbling like an old man and shouldn’t be so damned proud, Eliot snapped at her that he was not an invalid.
And indeed he certainly didn’t act like one. He had survived in one piece, at least, was still reasonably young and fit, and evidently still virile.
They were like young lovers again, hardly able to keep apart, constantly touching, sharing secret smiles, casting sidelong glances of agony at each other as the clock on the mantelpiece ticked slowly by, aching to sneak off to bed early but not daring to do so.
Once alone, clothes would be discarded with alacrity, buttons snapped, ribbons torn in their anxiety to touch flesh to flesh. Sometimes Eliot couldn’t even wait for her to undress, or to reach the great bed they shared, pulling her into his arms the moment the bedroom door closed, pushing up her skirts and consuming her with his mouth, his body, his great need of her. He would take her up against the door, making it bang and rattle and the brass handle prod her back as he thrust into her. Whatever the servants would think, Kate dare not imagine.
But what better way to deal with the nightmares which seemed to haunt him night after night?
Afterwards they would lie entwined in the big soft bed, sated, replete until morning and then on waking he would pull her to him while she was still half asleep and wake her with fresh loving. Kate would open herself to him gladly, take him within her. Simply to feel the warm weight of his body upon hers was utter bliss. And when the moment of climax came, she’d throw back her arms, gripping the bed-head in her ecstasy, wrap her legs about his waist as if she were a wanton and move with him in an instinctive rhythm, needing to give him all of her love and more. Afterwards, she would weep softly in his arms, overcome by emotion, quite unable to move or think.
Chapter Fourteen
Eliot wasn’t certain whether he was awake or asleep, alive or dead. The dream was so real. B but then so was the pain, which meant he must still be alive, mustn’t it? He’d been thinking of the boy, of his first encounter with his adopted son after all these years, wondering why he didn’t feel more disappointed by his rejection, or any rush of thwarted parental love. Did he have any emotion left in him at all, or had it all run dry?
None of this seemed real. Nothing. Not this house, not his family or the business, not even Kate at times. Oh, yes, Kate must surely be a dream, a sweet and lovely mirage. Otherwise, where had she come from? How could she be here?
He was lying in the straw, smelling the unmistakable stink of pigs, mingled with the scent of his own blood, and cordite, wondering where he was and if he really was alive.
Everything had happened so quickly. They’d stopped to rest by an old church, foolishly thinking it might be a safe spot, but destruction had come upon them right out of the blue, out of the blue heavens in fact, dropping like hell-fire on earth, blasting open a crater big enough to lose half an army in, or so it seemed. Certainly more than half of Eliot’s men.
‘Get down, keep your heads down!’ He remembered that much, shouting to them, warning them. He must have done, because everybody did go down, some of them never to come up again.
What was left of his troop must have brought him here, probably because the sty had seemed the warmest, safest place to spend the night. He wasn’t sure that the ripe odour didn’t outweigh these benefits, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. They’d slept in barns, cow sheds, beneath hedges, any place they could lay their heads.
And wherever he was, in some make-shift billet or his dugout, his rabbit hole as he called it, he w
ould dream of Kate’s lovely face. He’d conjure it into his mind and feast on it, until the pain of thinking about her became too great to bear.
The pain in his leg was worse. It felt as if some wild animal had sunk its fangs into it and was gnawing the limb off. He could see the festering sore, view it with a curious detachment, aware that the loss of blood was already great and that it showed no sign of stopping. He couldn’t allow this to happen. He had to get up and take care of his men. Yet something was pressing him down. He couldn’t move, was beginning to feel oddly detached and light-headed, the hole where a long shard of bone poked through seeming to grow larger by the second. Someone had ripped open his trouser leg, or had the shell done that?
There was a tourniquet of sorts; bandages stuffed into the hole. Neither seemed to be very effective as the wound was a mess of black and scarlet, of mud and blood, covered with flies half the time. Had he severed an artery? Was this how death felt: this aching tiredness, this desperate, dark chill?
‘Where’s the cavalry when you need it?’ The voice came out of the darkness, from someone huddled shivering beside him. It was a good question.
‘What a place to end yer days,’ said another, ‘in a sodding pig sty.’
‘Aye, but at least we have a roof over our heads. They’ll find us soon.’
‘Pigs might fly,’ came the droll response to this piece of optimism.
‘If tha does see any flying pigs, mate, it’ll be me, beggaring off up to heaven,’ said another.
‘Well, we’re at least handy for a few bacon butties.’
Eliot had often noticed that the men were at their most flippant and jovial when their backs were against the wall, as now. They’d even named their gun pit Sandbag Villa, situated in Whizz-Bang Lane. Their sense of humour, black though it may be, helped to sustain them. He felt nothing but sympathy and admiration for the fortitude and courage of his men. They were filled with optimism, quite certain they would be the victors in the end. Morale was high, and it was partly his job, of course, to keep it that way.
He wished he felt half their courage, one fraction of their faith in the future. Instead he felt certain he was failing them. For some reason he was filled with fear, a cold crawling terror stealing away the last of his strength. He knew he mustn’t fall asleep, that would be fatal. Somehow he must struggle to keep his eyes open, his mind centred.
He had to get them out of here, except that they were still being heavily shelled, pinned down, unable to move, trapped like flies under a jar.
A great weight was pressing down on him. Was it the enemy? Were they being attacked again? Eliot tried to push the sensation away, to rise and fight back, shouting at his men to ‘Move, move, move!’ He woke on a scream, with Kate ashen-faced beside him.
If life with Callum was difficult, Eliot proved to present greater problems for Kate. But then how could she expect him simply to settle back into domestic bliss after the terrible experiences of war?
He seemed to find it difficult to concentrate, and showed not the slightest interest in the factory, or in his painting which had once so absorbed him. He would either sit in morose silence for hour upon hour or else be frenetically dashing about, insisting she leave whatever she was doing and they go out for a ride, or a walk, or to visit old friends. At once, this minute. He couldn’t seem to keep still for a moment, even though, more often than not, his actions showed no real sense of purpose.
She tried to get him interested in his beloved garden, but he seemed to have lost all his old passion for that too.
‘Do you remember planting these trees, saying how they would be here for our son, long after we were dust?’
Eliot gazed upon them as if they meant nothing at all to him.
Even the rose garden, where he’d loved to walk and kiss her under the arbour, didn’t inspire him now. Where once he had known the name of every rose and never could pass one by without snipping off a dead head or drawing in the scent of a bloom, now he seemed oblivious to their charms.
Kate had employed a young lad to assist Eliot in what she hoped would be a rejuvenation of both himself and his precious garden, but whenever Tom asked Eliot what needed to be done, her husband would mumble something then walk away in the middle of a sentence. It was all very worrying.
Kate couldn’t begin to imagine what he had been through, what horrors he’d seen.
When he woke from one of his regular nightmares she would stroke his head, the tight hardness of his belly, and he would turn to her, taking her fiercely as if to banish the devils that haunted him.
He never spoke of the horrors, though she begged him to do so, hoping it might help to purge his mind in some way. He spoke only of practical matters, of their routine. And if he felt the need to talk, she would hold him in her arms, keep silent and listen, as now.
‘We worked in groups of three - one to stand guard, one to clean up the trench while the third took a nap. We maybe got one hour’s sleep out of three. Standing on the fire-step was the worst, watching and waiting, seeing nothing but the occasional flare, hearing only the odd explosion. It was the most boring job in the world, taxing the nerves to the limits, for if you let down your guard for a moment, it could be your last. You needed to be quick to spot whatever the enemy was throwing at you, so you could make a speedy evacuation of the trench if necessary. Besides which, falling asleep on duty was a crime for which a soldier could be shot.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, shot? Simply for falling asleep?’
‘War isn’t a game, Kate. Men could die as a result of such negligence.’
Not that Eliot would allow that to happen to any of his own men. He’d been tough, but always made certain that those under his command were suitably camouflaged from aerial observation as German planes came over, often just when they were about to go to the battery to eat so that their dinners would be cold and unpalatable by the time the raid was over.
‘Will Callum ever forgive me for losing him?’ he asked.
‘You didn’t lose him, he was stolen. It wasn’t our fault. He will see that in the end. He’s just a boy. Give him time. He doesn’t understand.’
‘I had boys under my command. Almost as young as Callum is now, far too young to be facing what they were forced to endure, day after day. Yet they did their duty, usually without complaint. Will he ever accept me as a father, Kate, will he?’
‘I’m sure he will, if we’re patient.’
‘Who was that boy we were talking to this morning?’
‘That was Tom, the new gardener.’
‘Why isn’t he in the army?’
‘The war is over, Eliot. Tom has been spared from joining up.’
‘I prefer Askew. When is Askew coming back? He isn’t retired is he? He said he never would retire, loved the garden too much.’
‘Askew is dead, my darling. You remember he died right at the beginning of the war?’
‘Did he? I forget. Could we have salmon for tea today? I love salmon.’
This was how his conversations went, darting from one subject to the next with neither rhyme nor reason.
He drew her closer to him, a slight smile curving his mouth into a softer line. ‘Mealtimes were the only thing we had to look forward to, apart from the delivery of the post when I’d look for your letters. For breakfast we’d get an ounce of cold ham with maybe three-quarters of a cup of lukewarm tea. A bit of bread if we were lucky. Otherwise there were biscuits. Hard and tasteless though they might be, they were still welcome, particularly with a little cheese, even if it had probably gone mouldy. And we got any amount of jam. I’m quite sure that the war was won on jam butties and bully beef.’
And he laughed then, as if it were all some sort of joke, and Kate laughed with him. It was either that, or cry.
One of their favourite walks that summer was over Scout Scar, a soft Lakeland breeze taking the heat out of the beautiful June days. Rock roses grew in the crevices amongst the limestone and Kate could detect the sweet scents of lil
y-of-the-valley, saxifrage and columbine.
On this particular afternoon Eliot laid her gently down in the long grass between the juniper bushes, making love to her as if she were a maid and he a mere boy. Crazy with love, oblivious of their middle-class, middle-aged, respectable station in life, they giggled at their daring, dozed and kissed, then loved again.
The auld grey town of Kendal was spread out in the valley below them, their town, their kingdom, and they felt as free as the clean Lakeland air buffeting their naked bodies, free to enjoy life and the glorious prospect of a brand new tomorrow.
‘Have you thought about the future?’ she asked, when she could draw breath. ‘I have so many ideas I’d like to share with you, when you’re ready.’
He smiled at her fondly, caressing the silk of her skin, her wayward, abundant hair. ‘You wouldn’t be my Kate if you didn’t have something to say on the subject.’
‘It might make you feel better to start thinking about the future, stop you looking back into the past quite so much. Might even help to prevent the nightmares if you had something new and positive to think about, and plan for.’
‘I will, I will. When the time is right, I shall at least agree to listen.’
But she couldn’t wait for some unforeseen time in the future. Kate was bursting with impatience, needing to talk about it now, wanting to hasten his recovery and believing work was the answer, as it had been for her when at her lowest. ‘I thought I might like to open a shop.’
‘A shop?’ Eliot looked startled, laughed, as if she had said something amusing. ‘What sort of shop, dearest?’
‘A shoe shop, of course, what else? Don’t you think that would be a grand idea? It would be stocked exclusively with Tyson’s shoes, naturally. I would specialise in ladies’ shoes, at least to begin with, and children’s perhaps. Different styles and fittings. Lots to choose from. It would be bright and clean and very fashionable. A place a lady could feel comfortable in, not one of these dull, dusty shops nobody wants to go into.’
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