When the Bough Breaks

by Connie Monk

  Once Beth was on holiday too and the children were free, as he spooned up his daily bowl of soup, he would look ahead to the afternoon, planning what he and Beth would play when they got to the common. That’s when the cloud would descend on him: nothing was the same without Jess. He and Beth always had fun, but although they never talked openly about it, they both knew it was because of Jess the bond held them.

  There was a quality of unreality in those summer weeks as June gave way to July and July to August. How could Kathie have imagined even six months ago that Bruce would have relaxed into being a member of their working party during the busy period of the school vacation? But then, what man given the chance wouldn’t have been drawn there to spend summer hours with Claudia? That’s what she reminded herself each time her thoughts strayed out of line. So why did she listen for the click of the gate when he arrived, why couldn’t she be casually friendly as she was with any other man? And when she kept her thoughts in control during the day, why was it that dreams of him disturbed her sleep? Did she imagine that his gaze followed her and when their eyes met there was something in his expression that she was frightened to analyse?

  Each night before she went to bed she wrote a brief note to Dennis, making sure that he knew exactly what had been done that day in the garden and making sure that when he came home he would be able take up the managerial reins. She was determined that he must feel himself to be part of everything at home.

  On an evening in late August Kathie was at the far end of their land, near the ditch where, in the days of keeping a pig, she had always emptied her bucket. The light was fading on what had been a beautiful day and she perched on the step of an old stile between Westways and Merrydown Farm. Many years ago the land of the market garden had been no more than a small field and labourer’s cottage on the western edge of the farm until the farmer had been persuaded to sell it. Nowadays it was leased to Dennis.

  ‘Am I disturbing your daydreams?’ She turned as she recognized Bruce’s voice. ‘I looked in to see how things are going.’

  ‘With Den or with me?’

  ‘I imagine the general answer would encompass both. Now that he’s taken the first step’ (perhaps unfortunate phrasing but they both let it pass) ‘and settled into the rehabilitation unit, the next thing will be he’ll be home. No sign of a date yet?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not yet.’ She made sure her voice sounded bright, but he wasn’t blind to the fear he read in her eyes.

  ‘I hope it won’t be too long,’ he said. ‘It won’t be easy – not for either of you – but better if he can get home before the autumn sets in. Hours in the house on his own while you work outside would be very hard on him.’

  He was the first one not to be frightened to acknowledge the difficulties that lay ahead.

  ‘I’m such a coward. I’m frightened to imagine what it will be like, even if the days are still warm enough for him to sit outside. Can you imagine, Bruce, just sitting there, watching other people do the work that was always your own? Why, why, why wasn’t he an artist or writer, an accountant, anything where he could at least pick up some of the pieces of his life? Supposing he resents seeing me doing the job that should be his?’

  ‘He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel resentment for what has happened to him; but he won’t feel it for you.’

  ‘Truly I want to be what he expects, not to seem changed. He has so much to bear.’

  Her words hung between them. For a few seconds neither he nor Kathie spoke, yet they seemed unable to look away from each other.

  ‘Take it a day at a time, my dear,’ he said at last, his voice firm and forceful and not a bit like himself.

  She nodded. ‘Perhaps I’m worrying for nothing. Just forget what I said.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, said and unsaid, Kathie, we must both forget.’

  It might have seemed an odd choice of words, but they both understood the full implication behind them.

  ‘Did you see Beth when you came in?’ she asked, her tone telling him that their unguarded moment was already forgotten.

  ‘Yes. She’s just finishing her book. You know, Kathie, she is a remarkably bright child. I hate the thought of her having to go back to the life she had before she came here.’

  ‘For nearly a year she’s been with me, and never once has her mother enquired. Beth says she can’t read or write, but she has a neighbour who can. Not a birthday card, not a Christmas card. I sent her our telephone number; surely she could have phoned. But nothing. Once Den is settled, I want to talk to him about adopting her. I’m certain her mother would be more than happy to let her go.’ And when he didn’t comment immediately, she prompted, ‘Bruce? You don’t answer. What do you think? Am I being selfish; do you believe blood is always thicker than water?’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t answer because I was indulging in pictures in my mind. I don’t know your husband so I can’t guess how he’ll feel. But “tell you one thing”–’ and just as she had to Dennis that day in the hospital, so Bruce used Jess’s excited tone of voice – ‘Jess would be delighted.’

  His way of answering took her by surprise and before she could hold them back, hot tears sprang into her eyes, overspilling to run down her tanned cheek. Whether he pulled her into his arms or whether she moved instinctively into their shelter neither would ever know.

  ‘Such a mess, all of it,’ she croaked, moving her wet face against his neck. ‘If only we still had Jess none of this would have happened, I’m sure it wouldn’t.’ She didn’t explain what she meant by that; he didn’t need her to. ‘I love Den, of course I do. We’ve been together so long that we’ve become like two sides of the same coin. So why do I feel like this?’

  ‘Like this?’ He tipped her tear-stained face up to his. ‘Like I do? As if I’m on some sort of helter-skelter, up, down, no power to stop myself.’

  Kathie nodded. ‘I mustn’t Bruce, and neither must you. You may think Elspeth doesn’t remember you but, if you weren’t there for her, her life would be changed, she would be lost.’

  ‘I have a friend, a psychiatrist, who told me a few years ago that I have grounds for divorce because of her mental state. The idea horrified me then and so it still does. Marriage isn’t just for sunny weather, not yours and not mine either.’

  ‘I do love Den, honestly I do. If I could change places with him and be the one never to walk, then I’d do it. But – I shouldn’t be saying any of this, I shouldn’t and neither should you. That’s the God’s honest truth. But, before we forget any of this has happened – and we must forget – say it to me once, tell me—’

  ‘Tell you I love you? Oh yes, I love you, Kathie. I dread to think of my future without you in it. I think you changed my life the day you strode into my study dressed in your best and ready to put me in my place. Or was it the next day when you looked more like a scarecrow in the field of Merrydown Farm?’

  ‘If you’d only known how angry I was to think you’d caught me looking like that when I’d been to such lengths the day before. You carried the heavy bucket from the sty, remember?’ She spoke softly, wanting to hold on to these precious moments and yet ashamed of her own feelings. This was wrong; for both of them it was wrong. She pulled back from him. ‘We can’t let this happen, Bruce.’

  ‘It’s too late to stop it.’

  ‘It must be a sort of midsummer madness. Wartime everyone’s emotions are upside down, husbands and wives separated, meeting people outside their marriages.’ She was clutching at straws, any excuse to make herself believe that once Den was home they would slip back into the way things used to be, their relationship easy and satisfying. But then there had been three of them; now there were two. Den, you’ve got to help me, she pleaded silently trying to reach out to him. What a moment for the clock at the Hall to chime three quarters: a quarter to eight. Wherever they were they would all be together in their thoughts. Was he thinking of her now? Was he resenting how dependent he would be on her? Was he
longing to get home, certain that her love for him was as solid as the ground under their feet? Help me, help me to love only Den. This is madness; it must be madness. But still she didn’t move away from Bruce.

  ‘When I fell in love with Elspeth we were both young,’ he was saying, speaking softly, ‘she was little more than a child.’ She knew he was making an effort to be practical, to help them overcome the sudden emotion that had rocked their world. ‘The future was bright; there were no clouds. Under a cloudy sky perhaps we wouldn’t have noticed each other. I love her still, for the rest of my life, come what may, I will always love her. But the love I have for you isn’t that of the inexperience of youth, it’s forged into my soul and spirit. I believe that sometimes, perhaps not often, but sometimes two people are moulded of the same clay. Even if we can never fulfil that love in the way nature craves, nothing can take from us what we have.’

  She was no longer crying, but she knew as she looked at him squarely that her face was a mess, her eyelids pink and probably her nose too. Helplessly she shook her head. ‘I’m glad about this evening. Is that wicked? No. No, Bruce it can’t be. But it mustn’t happen again, not even if Den doesn’t come home for ages. It must never become furtive and sordid.’

  ‘Darling Kathie.’

  ‘No. No more, Bruce. Listen, Beth’s calling.’

  ‘Auntie Kathie! Telephone! Quick. Didn’t you hear the bell?’

  ‘Run and answer it, Beth. Say I’m just coming.’

  Bruce watched her running back towards the house. At this hour of the evening it would be Dennis on the telephone. Already their moment was over and they were getting pulled back onto their own familiar paths. Slowly he walked back towards the cottage and the gate to the lane knowing that on the way back to the Hall he would stop at the lodge. Beth ran to meet him, giving him a full account of the homework she had just done. His life and Kathie’s were moving on, those few short moments when the world had been their own were already no more than a memory to be relived in the still of the lonely nights.

  ‘It was just a quick call,’ Kathie said as the two came near the cottage. ‘It was just to tell me that Den is being brought home tomorrow.’

  Eight

  In the first moments, as the ambulance reversed back down the lane to the road, Dennis was grateful to be alone. It was nearly six o’clock so the girls must have gone home. Not like it used to be, he thought as, before he could turn his thoughts in another direction, a wave of misery washed over him. Then on a summer evening the lads had liked nothing better than to stay on. And Kathie? Where was Kathie?

  Closing his eyes he breathed deeply of the familiar smell of turned earth, and newly cut grass too. Ah, he heard voices. And seconds later Beth and Claudia came into view. That Kathie’s waif should be coming back from the bottom end of the field as if she belonged at Westways did nothing to lift his spirits. Trying to cut her out of his vision and out of his mind he concentrated on Claudia. It was apparent she’d been working, evidence of it was in the scarlet gloves and wellingtons, yet she might have stepped straight off the fashion page of some women’s magazine under the heading: ‘Rural Elegance and Sophistication’.

  At that moment Claudia chanced to look in his direction and saw his chair on the grassy patch Bruce had mown that morning.

  ‘Dennis!’ she shouted in delight as, leaving Beth, she ran towards him. ‘Kathie’ll be furious that the reception committee has to be me, not her. She put off taking the order to Hopkins for as long as she could, hoping you’d get here. But she’ll be back in a minute.’ Her pleasure was apparent; her lovely face couldn’t stop smiling and the dimples dug deeper.

  ‘You’re doing a great job of welcoming me. Kathie has told me what a help you are to her. Just two girls hardly out of the schoolroom . . . Oh well, nothing I can do, decisions have to be hers in future.’ He raised his hands helplessly as he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Daa-daa-daa, de-daa-daa-daa,’ she sang solefully as she mimed the playing of a violin. Then, her eyes seeming to twinkle with suppressed laughter, she continued, ‘Wait while I fetch my fiddle.’

  Dennis heard the self-pity in the echo of his words. ‘Sorry, Claudia. You make me ashamed.’

  Squatting by the side of his chair with the ease and grace of a child, she took his hand in hers. ‘I wasn’t meaning to do that. Dennis, we are all sorry, desperately sorry. But there’ll be masses you can do.’ Although at that precise moment they didn’t spring to mind.

  ‘Never mind Westways; tell me about you. How’s the house? I’ve often thought about it, imagined how it would be looking. All the work must be finished by now. And the garden?’

  ‘The house looks nice but the garden is as you saw it except worse. I’ve never had one before. From the orphanage to a bedsit, from there to a small flat, then a posh flat, but never a garden. I’d like you to see the things I’ve had done. Would you let me push you round?’

  She was offering to push him, a helpless hulk in a wheelchair. He clenched his hands. She sensed his change of mood. That’s when she had a sudden idea.

  ‘And anyway, Dennis, it’s not just the house I want you to see. I want your advice about the garden. Think of the fun we could have designing what should be done with it. I just don’t know where to start. But if you could tell me what to do, honestly I’m not frightened of work.’

  He looked at her more closely. She had been a mystery to him on the day he’d gone to the house with her. Something she’d said a few moments ago had given him a clue: ‘from the orphanage’. Yet, her speaking voice was a joy to listen to. Children in orphanages surely didn’t have elocution lessons? Her voice must be a hangover from her time on the stage. He found himself smiling at her, feeling more relaxed and less in awe now that he knew that under the exotic front lurked a woman as ordinary as any of them. Following that train of thought he opened his mouth to ask her what she’d meant by ‘from the orphanage’ but that’s when he became conscious of Beth standing close by seeming hesitant to say hello and yet not liking to move away.

  ‘Hello Beth,’ he forced a note of joviality into his greeting.

  ‘Hello, Mr Hawthorne. I’d better go and lay the table. We all have jobs. That’s one of mine.’

  ‘Did you do the chickens?’ Claudia asked her.

  ‘Yes. Just four eggs was all I could find. I put them in the kitchen.’

  Beth imagined supper with just three of them at the table. She felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Hark! Kathie’s back. I’ll get my bike and clear off. Oliver will be waiting to get in.’ She had sent him on his way walking when he and Beth had got back from an afternoon on the common. ‘See you both tomorrow.’

  ‘Go and see to the table,’ Dennis told Beth as he heard the slam of the van door. This was the beginning of the rest of their lives. It had to be good, please God help me to find the courage I need.

  Seeing him, Kathie ran towards him dropping to her knees in front of his chair. A mistake. He leant forward to kiss her, she raised her face towards his, but for both of them it was an unnatural position, as unnatural as everything else about his homecoming. She got to her feet and moved behind the chair, leaning forward and rubbing her face against his.

  ‘Don’t hide behind me, let me have a look at you. Aren’t those my old trousers?’

  ‘Indeed they are. You know, Den, wearing them gave me confidence. And this shirt, this is yours too. Where’s Beth? Have you seen each other?’

  ‘Yes.’ His expression told her nothing. ‘She’s laying the table.’ Then, unable to stop himself, he added, ‘Have all the evacuees taken over so thoroughly?’

  ‘She only has us.’

  ‘The way this blasted war is going, we’re lumbered with her for a long time yet. How can our young flyers hope to win in the air when day after day droves of bombers make for London. And how long can London hold out? God, Kathie, it made my blood run cold to watch the dogfights. Here in the south west you’ve no idea what war is like.’

  ‘Nor
th, south, east or west we’re all one people. Remember Mr Churchill’s broadcast? You must have heard it in hospital. You could almost feel the nation pulling itself up tall. What was it he said? The road may be long and hard but we’ll never be beaten.’

  ‘No use looking to me for help. Bloody useless. About as much good as that van you drive would be without a motor.’

  Again she bent over him moving her lips on his cheek. ‘That my darling Den is the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard. There’s nothing wrong with your motor.’

  ‘And don’t be too sure about that either. Oh hell, Kathie, what sort of a husband can I be to you? I daren’t try and look into the future.’

  It was a good thing he couldn’t see the pity in Kathie’s eyes as she rubbed her chin against his head.

  ‘The future is something we have to work at, and we will, Den. Each day you’ll find there is something new you can do. I might find myself out of a job.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s better to look the facts in the face. I don’t even think I’m very interested in what’s ahead. Yet it’s even more painful to look back than forward.’

  ‘Den, we have to look back; we have to remember. Never, never, never forget any of it – of her.’

  Den put his arm around her and pulled her towards him.

  ‘The table’s all ready, Aunt Kathie,’ Beth called. This was usually her favourite time of day, when she sat at the table with Kathie and very often Claudia and, holiday time, Oliver too. She liked Claudia being there, even though the two grown-ups often talked about things she didn’t understand enough to join in, but she never felt left out. This evening might be different though. She was sure Mr Hawthorne didn’t like her even though he had never smacked her or shouted at her, but his eyes never smiled when he looked at her. If Jess were here it would be different; even not being able to walk wouldn’t make him so miserable. Beth opened her satchel and took out a notebook, finding comfort in the feel of it in her hands. Then she opened it and looked with pride at last night’s homework. Ten out of ten for her sums and the teacher had written, ‘Excellent work. Well done.’