Nest of Sorrows

by Ruth Hamilton

  Kate phoned for a taxi cab, then waited in the hospital foyer for it to arrive. Little Rosie would stay in her mind for many a year to come. And so would the girl’s troubled brother.

  Mike was furious.

  She distanced herself from him deliberately and carefully, leaving several inches of space between himself and her on ‘their’ bench in the park.

  ‘I’ve told her,’ he said sulkily. ‘She knows there’s someone else now. Kate, you are not a giver. Do you realize that I am prepared to put my job on the line for you? I’d never survive in a Catholic school as a divorced man. It’s OK for you, isn’t it? No-one would mind if Mrs Deputy-Head left her husband. It will get back to the Brothers in the end. And what am I left with? Just “cheerio, Mike, it’s been good to know you”!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ This sounded lame, but she could say little else.

  ‘Sorry? That’s hardly enough!’

  She sighed deeply. ‘I told you right from the start that there was no future in it.’

  ‘Huh! You didn’t say that when you were moaning in my arms, did you?’

  ‘That’s unfair.’

  ‘Unfair? Who are you to talk about unfairness? You threw me over once before for an old man, now you tell me I’m still not good enough for you! What sort of a future will you have with him?’

  ‘A poor one.’

  ‘But you don’t want me instead?’

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  He stood up and began to march up and down between bench and pond, arms waving wildly as his temper got the better of him. ‘I’ll tell him!’ he cried now.

  ‘Don’t be silly. That’s a woman’s trick.’

  ‘I want you with me. I always wanted you with me! We were going to paint, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘What chance is there now? For either of us? She doesn’t support me, he doesn’t support you. How the hell will either of us become a painter now?’

  ‘Perhaps we don’t need support. Talent will out, if it’s there.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said viciously. ‘How smug you are, Kate. You always knew you were better than me. But when did you last paint a picture, eh? When did you last sit by a pond and paint your ducks? I haven’t put brush to canvas since I got married . . .’

  ‘That’s hardly my fault.’

  ‘IT IS YOUR FAULT!’ Several passers-by glanced towards the small area of excitement they were creating.

  ‘Shut up and be your age,’ she snapped between clenched teeth. ‘Stop drawing attention to yourself.’

  ‘I will not shut up.’

  ‘Then I shall go home.’ She rose from the bench, but he crossed the small distance and pushed her back into a sitting position. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she said quietly. ‘Lay one more finger on me and I’ll have every policeman in Bolton running to Queen’s Park.’

  He clenched his fists, groaned loudly, then threw himself on to the bench beside her. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Like all men, you are no better than a spoiled child. Go home, Mike. It’s not worth this, nothing is worth this.’

  They sat in grim silence for several minutes, each staring at the pond and its surrounding bushes.

  ‘Hello.’ The cold voice greeted them from Kate’s side, and she looked up to see a small dark-haired woman standing next to her. ‘I’m Susan Wray,’ announced the pretty stranger. ‘I followed my husband, I’m afraid. So you are the famous Kate he’s always going on about.’

  Kate swallowed hard and painfully. ‘Yes. I’m Kate Saunders.’

  ‘I wish I could say that I was pleased to meet you.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Mike edged away from both women, his fear-filled eyes fixed on his wife’s angry face. She sat down on the bench beside Kate. ‘Well,’ she began. ‘What are we going to do about all this? I’ve a two-year-old son at home, and he and I would dearly like to know where we stand.’

  ‘It’s over,’ said Kate. ‘We were just finishing it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Sue asked her cowering husband.

  ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded small and hurt.

  She angled herself so that she could study Kate’s face. ‘You’re not the raving beauty I expected.’ There was a nasty edge to her words. ‘I thought he was about to run off with some golden-haired princess. Not that you’re bad-looking. I daresay you’re all right with a happier expression on your face. Why did you try to steal my husband?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘But you’ve had an affair with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mike placed his elbows on his knees, then doubled over to bury his face in his hands.

  ‘He has reverted to the foetal position,’ said Sue. ‘The man is a coward.’

  He jumped up, mumbled a few curses that were practically inaudible, then set off down the path as if the devil were at his heels.

  ‘There he goes,’ sighed Sue dramatically. ‘He never could face the music. So, where do we go from here?’

  ‘Home. Back to normal, I suppose.’

  ‘Not for me. Nothing can ever be normal for me now, Kate. I trusted him. I know he’s attractive, but he’s never strayed before. How can I believe in him now?’

  ‘I suppose you’ll just have to do your best. Look, Sue, I’ve known Mike since we were children. He’s not the unfaithful type. This was just a . . . an aberration. We were very close many years ago, and I suppose we were trying to recapture our youth. I’m sorry. What more can I say to you? Or to him?’

  ‘He still wants to run off with you, then?’

  Kate dropped her head in shame. ‘He thinks he does. But it would never work. Like all artists, we are both selfish people. You may not realize this now, but he needs you more than he ever did. I’ve hurt his pride – he’ll get over that. I could only inflict a shallow wound, Sue. But if you leave him because of this silly little affair, then he’ll never mend. I think he loves you.’

  Hope sprang into the sad brown eyes. ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yes. He has a lot of respect for you. Don’t give up on him, please! I couldn’t bear to think I’d broken up your marriage. For me, it was just physical with Mike. There are no real feelings on my part.’

  Sue studied her adversary. ‘What about your husband? Does he know about this?’

  ‘No.’

  Sue got up, drew herself to full height and clutched her handbag to her chest as if using it as a barrier. ‘Right. So you’ve got away with it this time. Well, let me tell you now, Kate Saunders, that if you ever go near my husband again, I’ll be round to your house in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Let’s see what your husband makes of this if it carries on. Let’s see you suffering while your world crumbles about your ears. If you want a new man, find one who’s not already spoken for. All right?’

  Kate nodded slowly.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said the small dark woman. ‘I will!’

  ‘I know. But there’ll be no need. I won’t be seeing Mike again.’

  ‘Better not. Because after I’ve told your husband, I’ll take you apart limb from limb. OK?’

  ‘You love him.’ This was not a question.

  ‘Of course I bloody love him! Do you think I’d have humiliated myself by following him if I didn’t love him? He’s a good father and a damned good teacher. I can’t let a slut like you ruin his life, can I?’

  ‘No.’

  The furious little woman paused for a second. ‘Only you’re not a slut, are you? This is your first time, isn’t it? You’d be less dangerous if you were a slut. Oh God, I wish you were . . .’

  ‘Don’t be afraid of me. You’re prettier than I am, more sensible too. And you have his son. He won’t stray again, believe me.’

  ‘He’d better not!’ She swivelled on her heel and marched away. As soon as she had disappeared, Mike crept out of a clump of bushes.

  With cold deliberation, Kate drew her Thunderer from her bag, placed it between her lips and let forth a blast that would have reached th
e deafest ears. Sue returned immediately to see what was going on. ‘I think you’ve forgotten something,’ said Kate, waving a hand towards Mike. Sue ran across the path, grabbed her husband’s arm and pushed him towards the nearest gate. ‘Thanks’ she threw over her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Kate to herself.

  She sat for a long time in the park, drawing her coat around her as the air grew chill. It hadn’t been worth it. Adultery might be the answer for some people, but it wasn’t for her. What would happen to Mike now and should she feel guilty about his trouble?

  Strangely, she didn’t really feel much at all. Since the death of little Rosie, she had felt little but grief at the sight of the child’s empty chair in her classroom, and at the memory of Steve Collins’ troubled face.

  With a heavy heart, she jumped on to the Daubhill bus and then ran to her mother’s house. ‘I’ve done it,’ she announced as soon as she got through the door.

  ‘Good. I should think so and all, our Katherine. You shouldn’t go messing about in the fire unless you’ve got asbestos fingers.’

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Right, I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Not that sort of cold, Mam. I’m lonely.’

  ‘Lonely? What’s lonely got to do with anything? I’ve been lonely all me life, but I never went chasing other folks’ men. They might have chased me but . . . anyway, that’s another story. Lonely’s no excuse.’

  ‘I know. His wife came.’

  ‘She what? She followed him, you mean?’

  Kate nodded. ‘She’s a really nice girl, probably too good for him. That’s what gets me about men, you know. They’re supposed to be the big guys, but it’s the women who keep life in order. You should have seen her, Mam. She laid into me, then dragged him out of the park like a little kid. I felt really proud of her.’

  ‘Eeh, God in heaven!’ Rachel dragged a hand through her hair. ‘What’s life coming to at all? You’ll have to settle down, love, make the best of what you’ve got. Just imagine what old Dotty would have made of this, eh? It would have been served up breakfast, dinner and tea for the next ten years. Good job your husband never found out.’

  Kate placed herself in a chair and held out her hands to the fire. ‘I think I’ll start painting again. It’s no use saying I’ve no time. Writers and artists never have any time, most of them do other jobs as well. But I’ve got to have something of my own, Mam, something that’s nothing to do with anybody else. Is that selfish?’

  ‘Nay, lass. That’s talent. Do you think John Milton thought about other folk when he was writing Paradise Lost? Did he hell as like. Somebody as starts stuff from scratch needs to be that bit selfish. So, do you want me to pose for you? Come on, cheer up.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Not that kind of art, Mother. I’m not sure yet. Maybe illustrating children’s books if I can find an author or a story. Or cartoons. I’ve always liked cartoons and comic strips. I’d like to write a set of reading books that look like comics, but I’m not so sure about the script. Perhaps I’ll meet another teacher with ideas. It’ll come to me.’

  ‘It will, love. I’ve always known that, and so did your dad.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘I’d like to have been sure of that. Years ago. I’d like to have been sure.’

  6

  Edgeford, Bolton, 1968

  It was a nice enough place, she thought while she wiped the dishes. It could be a lot worse. Many people must have tedious lives in surroundings far inferior to these. Like her own mother. Poor Rachel Murray had never lived in a place like this, had she? There was a fourteenth-century church, a little village hall where the drama society and the brownies vied for time and space, four pubs named after several animals of various colours, a park complete with putting green, and a strange mix of old and new housing.

  Kate had lived here now for five of the fourteen years of her marriage. Theirs was a modern detached house, a largish property with a long garden to the rear and, at the front, part ownership of a brook where nested noisy ducks and small furry animals whose names she could never master. This was happiness? This was supposed to be bliss. She swished the dishcloth around the bowl for a while, then dabbed in desultory fashion at a few stains on the Formica worktop. Housework had never been her forte. Perhaps her darker suspicions of herself were true, perhaps she had no forte, no strength, no particular talent.

  Jemima, who had been sitting silently on the grass beneath the kitchen window, suddenly quacked and flapped her snowy wings, demanding and expecting immediate attention. The white duck was out of place among all the mallards, mused Kate as she threw some bread through an open pane. Jemima mated with the wild ones, reared some beautiful mixed-up ducklings, yet remained tame and domesticated, often training her young to come right into the house during spells of frost. Kate grinned broadly. ‘You’re out of step, Jemmy,’ she called. Then, to herself she said, ‘Like me. We’ve both got it wrong, old duck.’

  She glanced out towards the cream slatted fence at the bottom of the garden. It was a tidy area, neat-edged and unimaginative, with a path of pink and white flags stretching its whole length beneath a plastic-coated washing line. Happiness. The fence wanted painting again. She looked down at her watch, dear God! she wanted painting too. He’d be in in a minute, briefcase and deep frown, Italian suit, Italian shoes, Italian martini clutched to his chest almost before he got through the door. Geoff. If Kate were to write a list of her mistakes, poor Geoff would be at the top. At the top in large letters and with a thick black border. Why did she think of him as ‘poor’ Geoff? He was a womanizer, a mother’s boy, a big soft lad. Why then? Because it wasn’t his fault? Because it was his mother’s fault? Were all the faults in the world women’s mistakes, then?

  None of it bore thinking about, especially now after what she had just been through. The last few days had left her drained; never, as long as she lived, would she care to make a decision so important again.

  Pristine waved cheerfully from next door and Kate plastered an obedient smile across her recently down-turned mouth. Blinking Pristine. Of course, the girl’s real name was Christine, but Kate had renamed her on a particularly venomous day. Because Christine Halls always got it right. Not only did she get it right, she achieved her level of unmatchable sainthood in a manner that seldom left her ruffled. If it rained, Pristine’s washing was already in and dry. Pristine’s carpets never showed fluff, while her furniture seemed to nestle in some air-free bubble where dust never landed.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said aloud to her disobedient mind, but still it wandered among Pristine’s shag-pile. Dust was ninety per cent human skin, and Pris probably didn’t shed like everyone else. Perhaps she was a robot, something that had been beamed down from another dimension, a thing that got serviced along with Derek’s car, Derek’s lawnmower and Derek’s precious bloody pedal bike. He was skinless too. Skinless, gutless and spineless. ‘Stop it,’ Kate yelled into the empty room. ‘You are a bitch, Kate Saunders,’ she muttered. ‘Just because you’re useless at housework, you pull down someone who’s good at it. And just because you’re unhappy, just because you’ve been through a bad few days, you tear at those around you. You are a bitter woman with a warped imagination. Derek and Pris must shed skin. We all do. What you need, madam, is a timetable and a better Hoover.’

  She practised smiling as she ascended the blue-carpeted stairs to wash, change her frock and apply her evening face. Nothing must show. Whatever had happened these past days, she must keep it to herself for as long as possible. Geoff would be angry if and when he found out that she had been making decisions for herself. Poor Geoff, she thought again. There were worse people than him, she had to admit grudgingly. There were the Dereks of this world. Living with Geoff and Dora was almost impossible, but the man next door would surely have been worse. Lugubrious Derek Halls was probably the most tedious creature ever to have crawled, no, slow-pedalled from a mother’s womb. He was a
n amateur racing cyclist. That, thought Kate as she pulled on the white and gold trouser suit, very likely said it all. Why, oh why was she suddenly so vitriolic? She’d always been sharp, but this was getting beyond a joke now.

  With her new face on, she suddenly indulged the irresistible urge to grip the handle of her husband’s wardrobe, flinging back the door to reveal the expensive and obsessively ordered contents. Unused to such rough handling, the teak panel groaned against a dry hinge.

  She stepped back, one hand supporting the opposite elbow, a finger and thumb stroking her newly painted mouth. Brown items were hung to the left, grey in the centre, blue on the right. Her fingers itched with the unreasoning need to take the whole lot and dump it in the brook. But they’d warned her, hadn’t they? ‘Stay calm’ and ‘keep your blood pressure steady’, it was like a litany now. But the damned man annoyed her! He even folded his dirty socks! What man in his right mind folded dirty socks? Was she really the crazy one? Every night, before placing soiled linen in the wicker basket, he carefully examined, studied, assessed and folded each item. It was enough to drive the sanest person crackers. Shoes were all on trees in the bottom of the cupboard, rich leathers gleaming with many applications of polish, laces removed, ironed, then hung on the tie rack, everything sorted again according to colour. She had drawn the line at ironing laces; he had had to learn to do his own. Till the granny flat had neared completion and Dotty Dora’s frequent appearances had started up again. Oh Jesus!

  She didn’t need to open her own wardrobe, she knew about the mess. The mess was her mess, her special and private disorder, a mess she had created and nurtured lovingly over the years, the only chaos she was allowed to own. And the hidden things were there too, things she could talk about only to her best friend.

  ‘Darling?’ This enquiry floated up the stairs. He had a nice voice, dark brown like his eyes. Though, beneath the velvet, there echoed a faintly disgruntled tone on this particular occasion.

  ‘Coming,’ she responded obediently. Yes, she would be good. Right to the end, whatever the end might be, she would be an outwardly perfect wife, if she could keep her temper. The image in the glass stared back at her. Who the hell are you? asked a frightened inner voice. And how the dickens are you going to get out of this one? Talk about another fine mess, Stanley, this is ridiculous! Katherine Saunders, nee Murray, would it be right for you to get out? Right for you, for him, for them? Oh, stop conjugating. Was it conjugating? Where was the verb? And, of course, there was Melanie to consider. Awful name, Melanie. It made her think of shelving and kitchen surfaces.