When the Bough Breaks

by Connie Monk

  ‘So this war has done her a favour, given her an opportunity she wouldn’t have had. And speaking of the war, are you expecting your husband home for the festival?’

  ‘For Christmas? No, apparently not. The highlight of Christmas Day for the men seems to be that the officers serve them their lunch. Who would have thought this time last year that we could have been having a conversation like this?’

  ‘Indeed. And please God by next year this mad world will have come to its senses.’

  ‘Are we even in sight of victory? Den is itching to get overseas and play a proper role. It’s so awful.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said again in what she thought of as his old fashioned manner. ‘My senior boys can’t wait to get into uniform. But they don’t know . . . how can they know?’

  ‘Were you in the last one the same as Den? He put his age up to get in.’

  ‘Ah, well I must be a few years ahead of him. I was seventeen and just leaving school when it began and so I went right through. War to end wars . . . dear God, what fools men are.’

  ‘Do you think Mr Chamberlain was wrong to declare war? Surely not. If you have a bully in your school I bet you’d soon have him in your study to give him six of the best.’

  Bruce laughed. ‘I bet I would too. Bullying has to be stopped. It’s sometimes difficult to define the line between tolerance and cowardice. These days I do very little classroom teaching; my job is mostly administration. But as headmaster my responsibility is to see that children who enter the school young and impressionable leave it at seventeen or eighteen as men of courage and self-confidence. To my mind that is of even more importance than their examination results. And I fear that in the beginning I made no headway at all with young Marley. I couldn’t even begin to understand what went on in his mind.’

  ‘I had the advantage over you there,’ she said as they approached Sedgewood village, ‘Jess and Beth broke through the barriers. If Ollie carries a torch for anyone, it’s his mother. And that’s right and normal, except that in his case I think he holds her on such a high pedestal that she remains just out of his reach. And that’s where the trouble lies. Once she gets to Sedgewood things will be much better.’

  Bruce circled his right arm out of the window to indicate that he meant to turn left into the lane to the common.

  ‘I’ll hop out here—’ she started to say, but he was already bumping his way along the lane to Westways. ‘I’ll open the double gate so that you can turn the car,’ she said as she reached for the latch to open the gate.

  ‘No need, I’ll reverse. Thank you for a pleasant afternoon, Mrs Hawthorne.’

  As is so often the way with dogs of no fixed ancestry, Fudge was quick to learn. And the two little girls took their responsibility seriously. Keeping him on his lead, they walked him along the lane to the common, stopping and waiting patiently each time he found something that required sniffing. They changed the water in his bowl and scraped the leavings from the plates into his bowl. They even imagined he was making progress in his attempt to stand on his hind legs when he was told to stand up and beg.

  Despite the mishaps that had to be cleared up, Kathie was thankful to have him. Christmas had loomed in front of her like a black cloud; she was haunted by memories of previous years. Yet as the days of December raced towards the 25th, she found herself with a new mission: if she and Jessie had been alone, memories would have killed the joy. But they weren’t alone, this year there was Beth whom Kathie suspected had never experienced a proper Christmas, and there was Fudge.

  She knew just where to find holly and greenery on the common and it was impossible not to be infected by the children’s excitement as they helped her collect enough to bedeck the downstairs rooms. Even Fudge seemed to know the outing was something special. In previous years, since Jess had been old enough to take part in the gathering of the greenery, she and her father had gone on their own. For Kathie this was a new experience, one that was enhanced by the sight of Beth’s face.

  ‘Cor, Auntie Kathie, it’s like as if there’s something magic everywhere.’ Then, almost shyly tugging at Kathie’s hand, ‘Sniff as hard as you can, you can smell it all different today, sort of . . . sort of . . . dunno what it is – but you can feel it, can’t you?’ She looked up at her adopted aunt, wishing with all her might that she knew more words and could describe what she could sense in the atmosphere.

  ‘That’s right, Beth love. For these last days before Christmas everything is different. The holly bush has a sort of magic about it. If you come back next week it will be just an ordinary holly bush – but not now. The spirit of Christmas is everywhere.’

  ‘Cor. But it must be just here where it’s all trees and grass and that, cos back in Merchant Buildings where I was for other Christmases the days were just the same as always. No, not just the same: the chestnut man used to get his fire going in our street; I remember the smell of it. And after Tilly got all dressed up and went out in the evenings I used to watch out of the window and see the people getting their cooked nuts. Do you reckon they’re nice, Aunt Kathie? Have you ever tasted any?’

  ‘Yes, they’re lovely. But here in the country we don’t get men cooking them in the street. We’ll buy some and cook them ourselves on the fire. How would that be?’

  ‘Cor . . .’ Clearly it would be good beyond words.

  With the girls dragging the sack containing the holly, ivy and sprigs of fir tree while Kathie took Fudge’s lead, the raiding party returned home where they found the tree Kathie had ordered in the village was waiting for them in the porch. Work was in full swing when they heard someone walking up the path to the front door.

  Recognizing Bruce, Kathie opened the window and called, ‘The door’s on the latch, you can come straight in. We’re doing the decorations.’ It must have been that spirit of Christmas that gave her this relaxed acceptance of such an unexpected caller; and perhaps that same spirit was responsible for Bruce’s offer of assistance.

  ‘Have you any steps? I was thinking we might fix some of the greenery to the ceiling beams. What do you think?’

  ‘Cor, it looks like fairyland,’ Beth said in a whisper that spoke volumes of her awe for the magic of it all. Just for a brief second Kathie and Bruce let their eyes meet, the message passing between them encompassing the importance of keeping the wonder of it alive for her. ‘Is it cos of that spirit of Christmas you told me about, Auntie Kathie?’

  Kathie nodded. ‘Oh yes. And you wait until it gets dark tonight, then look up at the stars,’ she said, thankful that the day had been cold and clear, ‘you’ll feel the wonder of it all around you.’

  Bruce moved the steps to where Kathie had already secured the tree firmly in a large bucket of soil.

  ‘What’s for the top? A fairy? An angel?’

  ‘We always have this big star,’ Kathie said, trying not to let her mind dwell on all the other years when it had been Dennis who had mounted the steps to fix it. Would he be imagining them today, the Sunday before Christmas, carrying out the annual ritual? Or would he assume that without him there would be no real Christmas at Westways? No, of course he wouldn’t. He would want everything to carry on as it always had for Jessie’s sake.

  ‘What next, while I’m up here?’ Bruce’s voice cut through her thoughts.

  And so the winter afternoon progressed, the children unwrapping the stored and fragile baubles with exaggerated and unnatural care – something else Kathie silently attributed to the influence the spirit of Christmas was having on them.

  Walking back up the hill to the main gate of the hall, Bruce’s mind was on the hour he had spent in the little sitting room of Westways. No wonder Oliver Marley wanted to spend every free hour there at the weekends. And yet was it any different from family homes up and down the land, homes where this year people were fighting to cling to a way of life that had been overshadowed by what was going on in Europe? He wasn’t prepared to dig too deeply for an answer to his silent question. Instead, reaching the lodge, he
unlocked the front door and went inside.

  It was much later. Bruce had gone back to the school that was empty except for one or two kitchen staff. At Westways the children were in bed, and Kathie tried to stir a last gasp of life into the dying embers of the fire. All day she had managed to keep up a show of high spirits, but now she felt like a popped balloon. She knew Dennis would want everything to go on as normal at home, but there was nothing normal about anything while he wasn’t there to be part of it. The room was getting cold; the greenery festooned with silver ‘icicles’ held no magic. Kneeling on the rug she bent nearer the dying fire, but it wasn’t physical warmth she craved. When she felt the sting of tears burning her eyes she made no effort to stem them. What was the point? No one could see her; no one would care whether she laughed or cried; all that mattered was that she was strong enough to work like a slave in the garden, come wind or rain, doing Den’s work through the hours of daylight until, when it was too dark to see, she was here to cook and clean in the house.

  She heard her stifled sob, then realized she wasn’t alone. Pushing the door open with his tiny paw Fudge came to her, standing against her on his hind legs and trying to reach to lick her ear.

  Far away in his army base, Dennis lay awake, his imagination winging him southwards to Westways. Kathie had told him she had bought the tree. Securing it in its tub of soil was his job; it always had been. How was she managing? She ought to have bought a small one to put on the table. But no, Kathie never let herself be beaten.

  Staring at the ceiling he listened to the sounds from the other beds: some of the chaps were sleeping, the chorus of gentle snores told him so. From a bed opposite his in the long hut came disturbingly obvious grunts from its occupant, Harry Brooks, a young Devon man whose bawdy conversation touched a raw nerve in Dennis, emphasizing to him that, no matter how closely men had to live together, there was no automatic meeting of spirit. He disliked the man’s coarse language and he disliked his nightly performances. As the seconds passed in the otherwise quiet hut and Brooks’ excitement mounted, so he grew louder. Did the others who may still be awake find it as offensive as Dennis did? He turned on his side and pulled the blankets over his head, trying not to hear. Think of something else – imagine Jess and her excitement as they did the tree, think of Kathie out there in all weathers working on the land. Oh damn it, what the hell am I doing here when I ought to be home with her?

  Five

  Christmas saw Kathie taking on yet another job which had always been Den’s: while the children were walking Fudge on the common she caught one of the chickens then, with her eyes tightly closed, she gripped its neck and with one swift movement stretched and twisted it, hearing the click as the bone broke. Her hands were clammy, she felt slightly sick as she looked down at the bird. It twitched and fluttered as if it still had the life she had taken from it. Then taking it to the shed she hung it on a hook in the ceiling. Later that evening she brought it indoors to pluck and dress it, feeling better as it took on the shape of ‘Christmas dinner’.

  Another Westways tradition was to play a gramophone record she and Dennis had bought the first year after they were married. Custom had it that the first hearing was at teatime on the 24th, following the Kings College Choir from Cambridge on the wireless. Kathie wound up the old gramophone, fitted a new needle and the cottage was filled with the sound of carols; the tone was poor, the recording old and scratchy, but the festival had started! Beth listened in wonder; the spirit of Christmas was all around her. It was the first time she had heard a carol, so Jess was able to show off her superior knowledge and ‘la-la’ the tune even if she’d forgotten the words. It was just coming to the end, the sound of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ reverberating through the cottage, when there was a knock at the front door.

  Kathie opened it to find Bruce Meredith in the porch. He was holding a parcel not very elegantly wrapped in a sheet of garish paper she recognized as coming from the village stores, and held together more by luck than by the yellow ribbon tied around it.

  ‘I’ve just done the unforgivable,’ he greeted her. ‘I’ve climbed over the gate for a short cut. Oliver Marley left this with me, with the request to bring it to you and the girls on Christmas Eve. My word, but don’t you sound Christmassy!’

  ‘Tradition has to be upheld, war or no war. Won’t you come in? That was very kind of Ollie. Let’s drop it off in the sitting room so that the girls won’t see it until the morning. When is his mother moving down from London?’

  ‘The first week in January, I believe.’

  She hid the package under a cushion on the sofa just as Jess ran from the warm room.

  ‘Mum, it’s still going round and round. Can you put it on again so Beth can learn the songs?’

  ‘Jess, where are your manners? Say hello to Mr Meredith and perhaps I’ll see what I can do.’

  So it was that a minute or two later she and Bruce were alone in the seldom used sitting room where the fire was laid ready to be lit the next morning while, from the warm room came the haunting sound of the treble voices of the boys of Winchester Cathedral choir.

  ‘Have you staff at the hall to prepare your meal tomorrow?’

  ‘I may go to the lodge. It depends how things are with Elspeth, my wife.’

  That a wife was the reason for his frequent visits to the lodge had never entered her head.

  ‘Your wife?’ She spoke before she could stop herself. If he was so secretive about his wife perhaps it was tactless to ask about her. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’

  ‘Indeed I am. I know you’re busy now, but when the holidays are over perhaps you would allow me to take you to visit her.’ His reply went no way towards explaining why he had never previously spoken of her. And yet why should he? Kathie asked herself. They were comparative strangers, why should he have felt impelled to talk of his marriage? And yet there was something strange about keeping his domestic life so separate from his position at the hall. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he went on, ‘We were married nearly seventeen years ago, she was just twenty and the loveliest creature you could see, and with a nature to match.’

  ‘Is she ill?’ Kathie asked tentatively. There was something unnatural in the way he spoke of her, ‘she was’ not ‘she is’. At thirty-seven, or thereabouts, she might have lost the innocent beauty of those early days, but changes come so gradually they are scarcely perceptible in someone you love.

  He nodded. ‘We had a happy year. There was only one problem: her mother’s deteriorating mental state, even though she was only in her forties. Then my father-in-law had a huge stroke and died within hours. It tipped the scales. She was a lost soul. Each time we visited she had slipped further away. We think of dementia as belonging to old age, but she was a beautiful, middle-aged woman. As a child Elspeth had had a nanny and, when she outgrew the need, Nanny Giles stayed on in the house, a sort of companion helper for my mother-in-law. But it wasn’t many months after her husband’s sudden death that it became obvious she needed more care than Nanny Giles could give. She became violent, wild, her whole character changed. She would look at Elspeth, her own daughter, and have no idea who she was. And it was just about at the same time that Elspeth was thrown from her horse when we were riding. The injury was to her head. In hospital she was in a coma; no one thought she would come out of it.’ He looked at Kathie as if he had forgotten she was there as he let his mind slip back down the years. She read anguish in his eyes as she held his gaze.

  ‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘Elspeth came out of the coma?’

  ‘Do you believe in prayer? I prayed. God, how I prayed. First as she lay helpless, I prayed that she would wake and come back to me. She woke but she was lost to me, lost to everyone. Their doctor said it was in the family, for three generations the strain of dementia had been passed. The fall, the brain damage, perhaps they only speeded up what would ultimately have happened. In body and in spirit she was the loveliest person I’d ever known, and for a year or so we had s
hared complete happiness. On the first of January it will be sixteen years since the accident. In the beginning I watched for some sign of recognition. I was consumed by terror and misery. My prayer wasn’t answered in the way I wanted. And yet, Kathie –’ for the first time he called her by her Christian name, neither of them so much as noticing – ‘some sort of strength came, strength to face what our future was to be.’

  ‘And now?’ She was frightened of what he’d tell her.

  ‘I don’t know. She smiles at me; when I sit with her she never pulls away when I take her hand. Sometimes if I say something she will repeat a word or two. Whether she knows who I am, who she is, I don’t know. Her manner is as gentle and sweet as it always was. I don’t know –’ he ran his hand through his hair, his tight control threatening to break – ‘I don’t know. If I didn’t see her each day, would she notice?’

  Kathie put out a hand and laid it on his arm. They were little more than strangers and yet she was moved beyond words.

  ‘Perhaps your prayers have been answered. Perhaps the answer is there in her contentment.’

  ‘I try to believe that. She is like a contented baby, warm, well fed and loved. It breaks my heart to see her and yet I am thankful and – can you understand this, I wonder? – sometimes just sitting with her, feeling her hand holding mine with such trust, some of that peace and contentment rubs off onto me. Is that crazy?’

  Kathie shook her head. ‘I think it’s beautiful; it’s a sort of pure, honest love that’s not tainted by the mess of the world.’

  He nodded.

  ‘That about says just what she is: pure, untainted by the mess of the world. She has no visitors, but if you could spare the time I would be grateful. Perhaps she won’t even notice that you are from outside her normal world but, if she does, surely it would be good for her.’