Nest of Sorrows

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘What the hell’s up with you?’ he asked. ‘You’ve not bent my car, have you?’

  ‘Maria died.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘And I can’t cope with it. I can’t cope with anything any more. I’ll probably give up school and do my Boothroyding full time.’ She threw a pile of papers at him. ‘I’ve been writing that all day, can’t seem to get it right.’

  He read aloud, ‘“Dear Geoff, I think you should know that you have a son and his name is Michael.”’ The rest was crossed out and tear-stained. He picked up the next sheet. ‘“Geoff, a child in my class died yesterday and I started thinking. Any one of us can die at any minute and it’s wrong for me to keep things from you . . .”’ Steve glanced at her. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘No. My head’s burning.’

  He shuffled through the pages in his hand. ‘“There comes a time, Geoff, for clearing the air. I ran because I thought you weren’t good enough. Perhaps I am not good enough.”’ The paper rustled as he screwed it into a large ball. ‘You’re not well.’

  ‘No. As I said before, my head’s burning.’

  ‘If you were well, you’d have more sense than to commit all this to paper. Writing down that you’re not good enough, you’ll lose Michael!’

  ‘I lost Maria!’

  ‘And was that your fault? Was it?’

  ‘She seemed OK. I should have noticed.’

  ‘Her parents are doubtless saying the same thing. Stop it, Kate! You will post none of that rubbish. If you’re going to tell Geoff, you will do it face to face and after Christmas.’

  ‘Right.’ She swallowed painfully.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ He touched her forehead. ‘My God, I could fry an egg on your face.’

  ‘Then you’d better do the cooking, because I’ll be sick.’ She got out of the car and staggered round to the passenger seat while he slid across to drive. ‘You must get the doctor too, Steve. It’s nothing to do with my diabetes, this is something else altogether. Just get me home and put me to bed, will you?’

  Two hours later, a concerned doctor packed away what Kate called his instruments of torture. ‘Stay in bed,’ he ordered. ‘Tomorrow, there’ll be somebody here for a blood sample.’

  ‘What is it?’ Her voice was thin and weak.

  ‘If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t be having tests done. It looks like glandular fever, but I need it confirming.’

  ‘Oh. Do I have to go in hospital?’

  ‘Probably not. Leave the child next door.’ He turned and called, ‘Mr Collins?’

  Steve came in, his handsome features altered by a deep frown. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you get time off work?’

  ‘I suppose so. We’re allowed compassionate days for family, and Kate is as near a wife as I’ll ever get. What do I do for her?’

  ‘Fluids. And get hold of her diabetic points guide, try to balance insulin with intake. If she refuses solids altogether, she may have to go into Walton for supervision. And if she can’t manage her injection, send for me.’

  He left them alone together. Steve perched on the edge of her bed. ‘What next, eh?’

  His voice was far away, but his face remained so near that she might have reached out and touched him, so she did. ‘You are so beautiful, Steve. All that lovely brown hair and those soulful blue eyes. What a waste.’

  He grinned. ‘Definitely delirious. You have to eat something.’

  ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever. Get my mother.’

  ‘You sure?’

  She nodded. ‘It hurts. All over my body. I am as weak as a newborn kitten. Get some sugar handy by the bed, this could be the start of a hypo. Don’t tell Mel. If she rings, say I’m in bed with flu. My head is floating somewhere near the ceiling. Get Mam, Steve. For God’s sake, fetch my mother.’

  ‘I will.’ He rose to leave, but she would not release his hand.

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why couldn’t you be normal?’

  He raised his shoulders. ‘What’s normal?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She was sinking into unconsciousness, and her hold on his fingers became slacker. ‘I love you,’ she whispered before slipping into sleep.

  Steve looked at the ceiling and blinked rapidly. ‘Kate, my love, if I could have been what you call normal, then you would have been the one for me.’ He stamped out of the room to phone Rachel.

  Rachel took over in Rachel’s famous way, deferring to nobody, showing little respect for doctors who came for samples and to check her daughter’s progress. ‘Glandular fever?’ she snapped frequently. ‘She’d never have caught it if she’d had a proper job. And if you lot were anything like proper doctors, proper doctors like what we had in my day, this poor girl would be cured by now.’

  Dr Fenwick sighed and stared at the angry little woman. ‘She’s holding her own, Mrs Bottomley.’

  ‘Holding her own? Holding her blinking own? It’s just as well, ’cos you’re doing nowt for her. And think what I’m saving the health service, eh? Unpaid nurse and skivvy, that’s me . . .’

  ‘I’ll send someone in . . .’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing! She can’t stand nurses, my Katherine. Nurses, teachers and social workers, she reckons they’re all tarred with the same brush. And doctors and all.’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Then you can’t have it both ways. She either stays here with you in charge, or she comes into Walton Hospital.’

  ‘She’s not going in there! I wouldn’t send a dog in there.’

  ‘They wouldn’t take a dog in there, Mrs Bottomley.’

  ‘Mother.’ The voice from the pillow was tired. ‘Mother, shut up. He’s doing his bloody best.’

  Rachel bridled. ‘Aye, well. Happen his best’s not good enough.’ She turned to the bed and spoke gently to her daughter. ‘You keep out of it, love, concentrate on getting better.’ She pulled the doctor to the door. ‘If owt happens to her, Doc, I’ll have you separated from your stethoscope.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t doubt that you will.’

  Rachel let the doctor out then returned to the sickbed. ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got better. What did you think I meant? That you’d messed the bed?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Sorry.’

  ‘Nay, lass.’ The older woman’s eyes misted over. ‘It’s been a privilege. It’s not often you get to do much for your baby once it’s grown. And . . . and . . . I hope you don’t mind, but in between nursing and washing, I’ve . . . well . . .’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘. . . and seeing to Steve – hey, he’s a nice lad for all he’s a nancy . . .’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘. . . and going next door to see if me-lad-o’s all right, and shopping and cooking and counting your points . . .’

  ‘What have you done?’

  Rachel swallowed deeply. ‘I’ve studied it. It’s wonderful . . .’

  ‘Studied what?’

  ‘That there reading scheme.’

  ‘Oh Mother!’

  ‘They said . . .’ Tears flowed freely now. ‘Oh God. They said at school that Judith was only clever and that Katherine would leave her mark. I thought . . .’ she blew her nose loudly, ‘I thought you were just awkward, I thought you’d never let it out. I mean, I know you’ve done well with your cartoons and all that, but I was looking for the serious side. Them nuns, they said, “Katherine’s vocabulary is unusual.” Well, I thought you’d been swearing, didn’t I? I thought you’d been listening to your dad. Then they showed me all them little books what you’d made on your own. Six years old and all spelt right ’cos I’d taught you how to use a dictionary.’ The small head was suddenly held proud. ‘I taught you. They never. Any start you had was from me. When your dad used to take Judith out, you and me got learning. All these years I’ve waited and I never knew what I was waiting for. I tho
ught happen you’d go back and do a degree, only you don’t need no degree, do you? ’Cos here you are making little books like you did at school.’

  Kate sniffed. ‘You shouldn’t have looked at the work. It’s private.’

  ‘Private? It’s brilliant! It’s for general consumption, is that. And the sixth book, the one with a few words in, that’s quite historical, isn’t it? How did you remember all that? The gossips on the corner, him with his blessed pigeons at the end house, her that always stood at the door with a pot towel in her hand. All that detail. You noticed everything, didn’t you? And the main thing you noticed was me. Oh, you’ve got me to a T in them drawings. No wonder you called book five “Oh Mother!” That there Nelly, she’s me, isn’t she?’

  ‘Not completely.’

  Rachel grinned impishly. ‘Anyroad, while you’ve been bad, me and Steve sent it all off to some university press or other, he knows. And we had a letter back to say they’re interested in what they call your pre-reading work. Then there’s cheques all over the house for your pots and your tea-towels, you’re a rich woman. I’m having me stall done up with all your mugs and place mats – they can buy them from the mother of KAZ! Isn’t it all exciting?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  While Rachel raved on about fame and fortune, Kate lay flat on the bed, her mind concentrating on just one thought. She had nearly died. Again. This was becoming a habit. If and when she did eventually die, Michael would have to go through the trauma of meeting an unknown father.

  It was time to get well again, time to roll the ball.

  15

  Dora was flicking a feather duster around Melanie’s room. As usual, she had been through all the girl’s private papers, clicking her tongue over scribbled homework notes, furrowing her brow while reading Kate’s carefully worded letters, shaking her head at the sight of all those hidden baby photographs. These were snapshops of Melanie’s friend’s little brother. A handsome enough baby, though scarcely qualified to take up space in a corner of the bureau. Dora sniffed. She was a secretive child, was Melanie. Going off on Saturdays to meet her mother, walking about for the rest of the week looking like the cat who’d swallowed the cream. Which was why Dora excused herself for snooping about the room. Young girls needed checking from time to time.

  The old lady sank into Melanie’s basket chair, the duster drooping from her right hand. This house was too much for a woman of her age, far too much. And the female who came in twice a week was good for nothing, never touched an item above eye-level and missed a few things that should have been obvious even to one of such apparently narrowed vision.

  It was all Kate’s fault, all of it. If she’d stayed in her rightful place . . . Dora kicked off her shoes and leaned back in the chair. More than two years now. Geoffrey must either get her back or divorce her, he was allowing himself to become a laughing stock. The woman was making fools of everyone. Dora sniffed again. Famous now, was madam. Interviews in the papers and on the wireless – what next? Telly, that would be it. She’d probably give a half-hour lecture entitled ‘How I Abandoned My Family And Became Successful’.

  The pain crept through her chest again, dull at first, then spreading its sharp needles down arms and into wrists and fingers. She popped another tablet under her tongue and waited for the spasm to pass.

  It took a while. It was then, during this particular episode, that Dora really started to think. Thinking and planning somehow took the edge off things, made her concentrate on matters which, though troublesome, were slightly less frightening than her erratic heartbeat.

  It was all quite simple, really. Simple and thoroughly complex. She had to get Kate back. She, Dora Saunders, would have to bend both knees as far as they would go and beg Kate to come home.

  Her mouth was suddenly dry and furry. The idea of begging stuck in her parched throat, and she swallowed deliberately and loudly. But an effort must be made. She could not just wander off into death; she could not leave her poor son alone and wifeless, her granddaughter lost and motherless.

  She turned her head and stared through the window. Such a mess should never have been arrived at in the first place. The ducks were quacking outside; Kate had loved the ducks, especially that white one. In her mind’s eye there appeared a vivid picture of Kate, Kate running up and down the bank with a stray duckling in her hands, Kate returning triumphant after finding a duck that would accept the little bird.

  The pain began to ease a little. Whose fault was the mess? Was it Kate’s, Geoff’s, Dora’s? Oh, what did it matter now, at the eleventh hour? The past was the past and could not be mended. But the future mattered, really mattered to Dora. And a strange sensation of peace came over her as the decision finally arrived. She would contact Kate. Whatever the cost to pride and dignity, she would make the first move. For Geoffrey’s sake.

  Later, in the hallway, she settled herself into the telephone seat and dialled the number she had extracted from Melanie’s diary. Kate had to be at home. According to recent accounts, she worked full-time from the house now.

  ‘Hello.’ The voice at the other end was so cool.

  ‘It’s Dora, your mother-in-law.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Dora coughed. ‘I am phoning you because it’s 1971 and I thought—’

  ‘I do know the date, thanks.’

  The older woman fought to control her erratic breathing. ‘Don’t come the clever one with me, Kate! It’s 1971 and you have been gone for well over two years. This whole situation is beyond me. And it’s certainly too much for me.’

  ‘I’m . . . sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry?’ She must remain calm. The tablets could do so much and no more. ‘Listen to me, Kate. We have not always got on, you and I, but the time for plain speaking has arrived. I have angina and an inoperable growth in my bowel. It won’t be long now. Will you come home when I’m dead? Is that what you’re waiting for?’

  ‘Dora, I . . .’ Kate’s voice faded to nothing.

  ‘I have to know. I am leaving my son and my grand-daughter with no-one. I have to know.’

  After a short silence, Kate said, ‘Don’t excite yourself, Dora. Have you got medicine for your heart?’

  ‘Yes. It’s with me all the time.’ She began to cry quietly. ‘I know now. I know where I went wrong. You and I could have been friends, but I was . . . never mind all that. And you were wrong too.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I was. I’ll be sorting something out soon. Please take care . . .’

  But Dora wasn’t going to be fobbed off so easily. ‘What are you going to sort out? Will you take Melanie away from him? After all, you’re a rich woman . . .’

  ‘No. I won’t be taking Melanie anywhere. But I’ll be seeing Geoff soon.’

  ‘When? When, though?’

  ‘Soon. That’s all I can tell you, Dora. Are you feeling better now?’

  Dora sniffed and blew her nose. ‘I’ve . . . missed you. I hate to say it, but I have. And Geoffrey has too. I know there have been . . . other women, Kate, but—’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘I’ve always known. He’s been spoilt. I spoiled him. He sees what he wants and goes for it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For saying that.’

  Dora wept anew. ‘He loves you, Kate. Only you . . .’

  ‘I’ll see him soon. Don’t worry. I have to go now. Goodbye, Dora.’

  ‘Goodbye, Kate.’

  Dora replaced the receiver, then mopped her eyes with the sodden handkerchief. Perhaps madam would deign to come home after all. Perhaps Dora would be able to die in peace?

  Phil Carter scraped avidly at the last drops of his brandied chocolate mousse, not noticing that the three other occupants of the table were laughing at him.

  ‘Why don’t you lick the bowl?’ asked Maureen. ‘That was delicious, Chris. Absolutely perfect. Tell me, how do you two manage? For food and . . . well . . . religion and so on? Aren’t there a lot of differences?’ />
  Chris shrugged. ‘I suppose there were. But we got over them, didn’t we, Santosh? He bought me a cookery book and I learned to do his meals. And he’s learning how to eat a bit of English food. It’s give and take, all give and take.’

  ‘And what about church?’ asked Phil.

  ‘We don’t bother.’ Chris’s face wore an air of serenity. ‘My lot doesn’t want to know me, but Santosh says they’ll all come round in time. I don’t care whether they do or whether they don’t. We’ve got one another and that’s all that counts. Me, Santosh and our little Robert.’

  Santosh Mathur smiled benignly upon his new wife. She was everything he needed. Chris had proved to be an excellent companion, a diligent student at night school, a good cook and a caring stepmother for Robert. ‘I have a wonderful woman,’ he declared solemnly. ‘Sometimes she is too wonderful. I am afraid that I shall grow fat.’

  ‘Give over,’ chided Chris, though her face was stretched into a wide grin. ‘It’s not in your nature to be fat. You’re like a beanpole, you are. Shall we have our coffee in the lounge?’

  They repaired to the other room, where the atmosphere suddenly became serious as they drank their Kenya blend from thin Susie Cooper cups. The real business of the evening was about to commence. Santosh took charge of the meeting, while Phil, who was hearing certain facts for the first time, sat back looking amazed during much of what followed.

  ‘It’s better at Maureen and Phil’s house,’ began Santosh. ‘This must be done with delicacy, and our house is too close to Geoff’s. It cannot be done in a public place. If they were to meet in a restaurant, things could go very wrong. At least in Maureen’s kitchen they will be able to shout.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, I fear there will be much shouting.’

  Chris shook her head. ‘Kate says there’ll be no arguing. She’s arranging something so there’ll be no arguing. The first sign of a raised voice and she’s off, she says.’