But not everything Katrin Hawley had said. Alice Butler had been so very thoughtless, so trusting. She had accepted all that had been told to her, all she had been led to believe.
Led! Katrin hugged the word. Alice Butler had been led along a painful path and Katrin Hawley had held the halter.
It was all becoming too much for him. Miriam Carson looked at the figure slumped in an armchair, weariness written in deep lines across his face. It had been a kind thought on the part of Arthur Whitman: promotion to works manager had been a vote of his confidence in her father, but with promotion had come problems. Arthur Whitman ought to have foreseen that. He knew Isaac Eldon for a man who would not forego one task in favour of another, but would do both. That was what he was doing now, two jobs at the same time. She had tried reasoning, tried to get him to agree he was overworking, but he had simply smiled and shaken his head.
Going into the kitchen, Miriam added salt to the potatoes she had peeled earlier and set the pan to boil.
‘I have no liking for bein’ tied all day in some office.’
He had admitted that much, so why had he consented?
‘Just for a while. It be difficult finding somebody suitable what with so many men being called up; but not to worry yourself, I’ll manage until Whitman can find the man he wants.’
So her father believed, but managing two jobs was wearing him out . . . when would he believe that? Shredding cabbage, Miriam blinked against her own weariness.
‘. . . not to worry yourself . . .’
Words so easy for a man to say, but how easy for a woman to accept when her every day was filled with anxiety for those she loved, when every hour held the possibility of war depriving her of them?
Crumbling an Oxo cube into a half cup of hot water, Miriam stirred it into a pan of fried onion.
War! She watched the mixture brown and thicken.
War was the Devil’s instrument, a multi-purpose tool designed to persecute; and how many ways he used it. Bomb, shell, bullet they were all his bringers of death, but death was finite, an ending of pain. So when that was not the outcome? When fire and falling buildings burned and crippled the body, when heartbreak and worry tortured the mind, when desolation maimed the soul? That was when the Devil smiled.
‘Shall I set the table, mum?’
She wanted to take her son into her arms, to hold and not let go.
To hold and not let go. Smiling through her tears, Miriam looked at the lad taking cutlery from a drawer. What would Reuben say to that!
‘Just you and me mum, granddad said to put his meal in the oven.’
‘Oh did he!’ Miriam glanced toward the living room. ‘Well you just tell your granddad he is to come eat it now, with us.’
‘Can’t mum, he’s already gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Two minutes ago. Said he had to go back to the factory.’ Setting condiments on the table Reuben gave a puzzled look. ‘When I asked why, seeing he had been there all day, he didn’t answer . . . have I done something has made him angry with me?’
‘No . . . no, of course not.’
‘But granddad always talks to me, yet tonight . . .’
‘Granddad is tired.’ Miriam replied quickly.
‘Then why go back to work? Why not stay here and rest?’
Why indeed? Miriam returned to the pans bubbling on the stove. She knew war was driving everyone to do their utmost, but what was driving her father beyond that point?
What was it had Isaac Eldon at Prodor all day and much of the night? After the meal, Miriam sat beside the fading living-room fire. As much in short supply as every other commodity, coal was too precious to allow holding fire in the grate any longer. She reached for a blanket always kept ready against a night raid and drew it about her shoulders.
Reticence, withdrawal into himself, reluctance to be drawn into conversation – Reuben too had noticed the change in his grandfather.
Was it the death of his sister? He had grieved for months for those two brothers killed at Ypres during the Great War, two whose photographs hung on a wall in his bedroom. Two brothers dead on the same day. How could he forget? Now that sorrow was added to by fear of his son risking his life in an equally horrifying war. That she could understand, it was an agony ate at the heart, hadn’t she suffered the same? That fear which rose afresh when letters from her brother did not come.
But she sensed this was a new cause of concern, one he could not bring himself to speak of her father’s sadness had been obvious when standing at Violet’s open grave. It had been made abundantly clear Violet Hawley’s relatives were not there with the blessing of her daughter. Though Isaac and Ella had been brother and sister to Violet, it appeared quite plain the invitation to attend her funeral found no favour with her daughter. It had been Jacob Hawley had met with them at the church, Jacob who had talked with them while the girl had kept a cool distance. She had spoken to none of her mother’s family, had not acknowledged them by so much as a nod, then as the priest finished the final invocation she had turned from the grave and walked away with no glance in their direction.
She had seen the hurt flash its signal across her father’s eyes. Miriam’s fingers clutched the corners of the blanket. Even as a young girl Katrin Hawley had shown no affection toward her mother’s kin; now she was a young woman filled with spite, a vindictiveness it seemed she was ready to vent upon anyone. Jacob and Violet had reared her with all the care they could give, but it was to be regretted they seemed not to have taught her that malice and spite has a way of bringing its own reward. One day Katrin Hawley would find that out for herself.
12
‘Eh Alice, I’m sorry you was turned down, it’s a right shame, really it is.’
Katrin smiled remembering the words she had heard Becky Turner say as she had left the two to walk home. So it was a shame Alice would not be free of her mother, would not get to wear any glamorous uniform; but then Alice Butler should never have accused another girl of being a liar and a cheat.
Table cleared of the meal she had prepared for her father, she glanced about the kitchen. Everything was in its place, tidy, ordered, dealt with just as she had dealt with Freda Evans and Alice Butler. They had hurt the feelings of a young girl but had given a great deal of pleasure to a young woman.
She checked her father had locked the front door when leaving for his fire watch duties then went upstairs to her room.
Yes, repaying those two had been very pleasurable and it was an experience she would enjoy again.
‘Eh Alice, I’m sorry . . .’
Catching her reflection in the mirror of the dressing table she stared back into eyes hard as stone.
‘Don’t waste all your sympathy, Miss Turner,’ she murmured, ‘save a little for yourself – you are going to need it. But you will not be alone in that, there are others also will know the way Katrin Hawley repays a slight.’
Pulling open a drawer, she touched a finger to a lavender silk scarf then drew the delicate fabric aside to touch the box it had covered. These two things were all that remained of Violet, the only personal possessions of the woman she had called mother. The rest, clothing and shoes, had been packed into boxes and donated to the Civic Centre where volunteers could hand them out to people who had lost everything to bombs and fire; but the scarf and the box she had kept.
As a memento of Violet Hawley?
She rippled the fine silk through her fingers.
No. She smiled, watching the cloth move and shine like water reflecting the pale mauve of early evening. No, she had not kept them in memory of Violet, but rather of what she and others were responsible for.
‘No, mother! That memory will never die . . . but it will be avenged.’
She drew aside the heavy blackout curtain and allowed the clear moon to light the bedroom, then lay watching the reflection of breeze-tossed leaves dance their graceful movements on its walls.
Her father’s cherished silver birch. Memories as soft as the si
lvered beams pirouetting to the silent music of the night whispered in Katrin’s mind. He had planted the tree on the day she had come to them; he had nursed her beneath it, soothed her to sleep with the branches swaying in unison with his gentle words.
‘Katrin’s tree.’ That was what her father had called it. Every birthday for as long as she could remember a prettily wrapped gift had hung from its branches and each Christmas Day he had gone with her to stand beneath it while he lifted down the special present left for her by Santa Claus.
Special days. They had been special days. It was before her teen years she had realised that only on those days, in the shelter of that tree, had the haunted, unhappy look disappeared from his eyes, a look they held even now on the rare occasions his mental guard slipped. It had slipped the evening he had returned from identifying his wife’s body, the look she had taken to be that of guilt.
Guilt? Unhappiness? A mixture of both with one being responsible for the other? Whichever, the outcome was the same: Jacob Hawley was a man plagued by the past.
And his daughter?
She also was acquainted with that demon but it was a relationship she had at last begun to destroy.
Knowledge had been a wine too delicious to swallow in one gulp, it had needed to be sipped a little at a time, savoured, the sweetness captured in the throat before letting the delight of it seep into the soul.
But now the tasting was over.
She had put down the glass but the bottle was not yet empty. It still held the ambrosia of revenge and Katrin Hawley would drink deeply.
She had given no name, given no identification when making that telephone call. The government made some things so easy. You needed only to voice your suspicion; the name and address of the security conscious citizen was no requirement. That was how it had worked when she’d reported Freda Evans’ black-market selling and it would work again this time. But there was one difference.
The consequence of that call would not be a five-year gaol sentence. Treason was a serious crime at any time, but betrayal of your country during war could only be counted the most serious and therefore bring the ultimate sentence.
One difference! She breathed long satisfaction. Execution constituted one very big difference!
She had worded the call carefully, injecting the right amount of uncertainty into her voice. ‘I really don’t feel . . . it might be just me imaginin’ . . . I don’t want to be a’ gettin’ o’ nobody into no trouble . . .’
She had hesitated over every fumbled sentence, wavering, seemingly unsure if she should continue, But there had been nothing she wanted more.
‘I don’t be a one to go a’ tellin’ o’ no lies . . .’
She had gone on, local vernacular lending its disguise.
‘. . . but seein’ them there papers . . . them drawrins . . . I means what wi’ secoority the way it be, a’tekin’ away o’ every street sign an’ all . . .’
Had it been her mention of drawings, of security? Certainly when she had said those words the voice at the other end of the line had developed a deal more interest.
‘. . . I ain’t a’wantin’ to be no noosance.’
The man urged her to go on, that it was right to inform him of any irregularity, and so she had.
The snare was set.
She would watch the rabbit walk into it.
‘Oh God!’ Miriam Carson’s hand flew to her throat. ‘Oh God no, not Robert!’
‘Robert is your son?’
Fear choking her, Miriam’s voice trembled. ‘No . . . he . . . he’s my brother.’
The tall, spare framed figure, a dark trilby hat covering most of his grey hair, stood on Miriam’s doorstep and watched her reaction with cool assessing eyes.
‘Is . . . is Robert . . . has anything happened?’
There was genuine anxiety in the question. ‘I have not called about your brother.’
Relief burned bright tears in Miriam’s eyes.
‘I should have realised, you aren’t holding a telegram.’
‘No, Mrs Carson, I bring no telegram.’
As perplexed as she had been afraid, Miriam hesitated to invite her visitor into the house. He was not the bearer of that dreaded telegram, he did not wear a uniform, so who was he? Why was he here?
‘Perhaps this will explain.’ Taking a slim leather wallet from his pocket, the man held it toward Miriam.
It bore a card with an identity photograph.
‘Mrs Carson, I am here about your son . . .’
Reuben! Something had happened to her son, he had been injured! This was one of the teachers from his school come to tell her.
‘. . . Please,’ the man went on, seeing the anxiety in Miriam’s stare, ‘could we talk inside.’
What did Reuben do after school? What were his interests? Did he go out in the evenings? So many questions. Why all the interest? Had Reuben done something he shouldn’t have? Why didn’t this man explain? A mother’s protection suddenly hot and fierce she snapped.
‘Hold on a minute! You show a piece of card any schoolboy could come up with and expect it to give you the right to come to this house asking as many questions as you can put tongue to, well let me tell you . . .’
‘Mrs Carson . . .’ His interjection was as calm as the stare in pale grey eyes.
‘. . . I am sure if you look carefully you will see this card is not the work of a schoolboy, you will also agree it provides me with the legal right to ask as many questions as I think fit and of every member of this household. Now,’ he took back the wallet returning it to his pocket, ‘please tell me . . . what time do you expect your son home?’
‘I can’t see anyone right now Katrin, tell whoever it is he will have to make an appointment.’
‘He was very definite he must speak with you.’
‘They always are.’ Arthur Whitman banged his pen agitatedly against the desk. ‘We must have more of this . . . there is a vital need for more of that. Always more, can’t they get it into their heads I can’t conjure munitions out of thin air!’
‘What shall I tell him?’
‘Tell him to bug . . . Sorry, Katrin.’ Arthur Whitman let his head fall back against his chair his eyes closing for a few seconds before adding, ‘Better get it over with. Ask him to come in.’
He was not a man she recognised. The man she had shown into her employer’s private office had not called here previously. But he had not intended leaving without first talking to the person he had come to see, that had been very clear. More demands to be made of Arthur Whitman? More weight added to his shoulders? Hopefully, yes. Katrin removed a letter from the typewriter and placed it to one side to await signature. The more pressure on Arthur Whitman the more he would look to someone to alleviate it.
Would that someone be herself or would it be Isaac Eldon?
He was turning more and more to that man. Each day had that man consulted over one thing or another, ‘Eldon is the man to sort that out’ was becoming the standard cry.
Works manager! Why had he been given that position? Wasn’t it patently obvious that he spent all his time in the workshop doing exactly as he had always done, working alongside fitters adapting machinery to a different purpose, replacing broken or worn parts when tool setters had been busy elsewhere? Didn’t that prove he wanted nothing of work which tied him to an office? She had heard him say as much but it had been brushed aside. Eldon was the man for the job. The words had become Whitman’s creed.
But not her creed.
Placing a second letter with the first, Katrin nursed resentment.
She would not subscribe to a doctrine she had set her faith in destroying.
A quiet buzz called her attention.
‘Katrin.’ Arthur Whitman paused as though reluctant to speak. ‘Isaac . . . Mr Eldon,’ he corrected himself, observing protocol in the presence of a visitor, ‘would you tell him I wish to speak with him?’
Eldon again! Irritation submerged beneath a nod, Katrin affected a smile. �
�I will have someone fetch him.’
‘No!’ Whitman answered quickly. ‘I want you to go yourself, and Katrin . . . no word to anybody else.’
No word. Katrin frowned making her way down the flight of stairs. What was there to talk of when all she had heard was an instruction to fetch Isaac Eldon? What was so important that she must not speak except to Eldon himself? It could not be that Whitman wished the presence of the man in his office kept secret, his arrival had to have been recorded by the gatekeeper and witnessed by several others as he walked along the corridors leading to her office. Yet the instruction had been clear. She was to speak to no one other than Isaac Eldon.
Ignoring the appreciative glances following her through the various workshops, her breath shallow from the effort not to breathe the odour of slurry oil, Katrin was relieved to see the brown overall-covered figure bent to examine a batch of large mortar shell cases. The man standing at his elbow nudged Eldon, who immediately came towards her.
What was the sense of appointing this man to a managerial position? She watched him pull a rag from his pocket and rub it over his hands and disapproval became derision. This was all Isaac Eldon was, all he was qualified to be, a worker on the shop floor. One day Whitman would realise that. But not yet. Having him learn too soon could mean another man taking Eldon’s place and that was not in her scheme of things. No, Whitman must be allowed his mistake a while longer. Time she would use to her advantage. She would let him know who saw to the management side, disclose the fact it was she did Eldon’s paperwork, but only when she had entrenched herself so deeply it was impracticable to replace her.
‘Katrin . . .’
Isaac Eldon’s colour drained leaving pale patches between dark oil smears on his face.
‘Katrin . . . is it Robert? Is it my son, is he . . . ?’
Had Robert Eldon met with an injury? Was his ship torpedoed? Was he lost at sea? Was he dead? Katrin met eyes filled with dread yet felt no pity. Isaac Eldon did not deserve her sympathy and neither did his family.
A Step Too Far Page 9