A Mother's Gift (18 page)

She shrugged her arms into the sleeves, stood as he turned her round and fastened the big buttons. It had a large fur collar and a low, draped waist and narrowed around the hips to the hemline just on the knees. Oh, it was a lovely coat. She buried her face in the high fur collar; it was soft and silky and the most beautiful thing
she
had ever had in her life. She could always take it off before they reached Winton Colliery.

‘Whoever would have thought it of her,’ Sister said aloud to no one in particular as she watched them leave, Matthew holding on to Katie’s arm. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.’ Staff Nurse said nothing, just went ahead with stripping Katie’s bed. But she would lay odds they wouldn’t see that one back here working as a probationer nurse even though she did look as innocent as a baby. No, Nurse Benfield had found herself a sugar daddy.

Matthew was driving himself again. ‘You may have the day off today,’ he had said to Lawson.

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Lawson had replied but it was just as well that Matthew did not see the ironic gleam in his eye. The gaffer didn’t want his chauffeur to see what he was up to. And Lawson was pretty sure what that was. Still a day off was a day off.

‘I will drop you at the end of the rows,’ said Matthew as they approached Winton. They had got there in record time for Matthew, unused to driving himself these last few years, had rediscovered his liking for speed and was indulging it to the full.

Katie hardly noticed how he drove until they swerved round the corner into Winton, still in third gear and there was a group of little girls, strung across the road and playing a skipping game. She was jolted into awareness as Matthew swerved again, brakes screaming, up on to the pavement and away from the children but almost into a boy who was leaning against a low wall on the opposite
side
of the road, hands in pockets and legs crossed nonchalantly. They were so close that the boy jumped and fell over the wall on to the rough ground beyond.

Katie had the door open and was out of the car in an instant. She vaulted the wall herself and bent over the boy.

‘Are you hurt?’ she cried. She felt his limbs and the back of his head, there was no blood thank goodness. He looked up at her, winded, and then shrugged her off.

‘Leave off, will you, Katie Benfield,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nowt the matter with me.’ He got to his feet and dusted scraps of dead grass from his jacket. ‘It’s that fella there, he’s blooming mad he is, driving like that. He oughter be in Sedgefield!’

Matthew was there by now, as were half the residents of the rows, all brought out by the sound of the car and the shouting.

‘You’re all right boy, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Shall I take you to your mother?’

‘No! What do you think I am, a baby?’ The question enraged the boy even more. Matthew groped in his pocket and came out with a couple of florins and two sixpences. ‘Here you are then, this will make you feel better.’

Magically, the boy’s temper disappeared, he grinned and pocketed the money. ‘Eeh thanks, mister,’ he said. He’d never had so much at one time in his life before. But there were mutterings among the onlookers.

‘Nearly kills the lad and then tries to buy him off!’ Katie heard the woman’s voice plainly and an answering man’s growl.

‘I am perfectly willing to take the boy to a doctor to be
looked
over. Lady Eden’s Hospital in Auckland if you like,’ he said. He looked over the crowd, challenging them to make more of it but most of them dropped their eyes, some turned away, those who remembered who this man was from the day of the pit disaster. They wanted no trouble with a boss, they were still too close to the hard years of slump and dreaded their return. All except one, that is. Kitty Benfield had come out of her yard to see what the commotion was all about and when she got to the end of the alley, all she could see was that Katie was there with that flash man who had come to her door on the night of the funeral. And Katie was dressed up fit to kill.

‘Katie! You come here, this minute, do you hear me? Get in the house!’

Katie remembered she was still wearing the coat and blushed fiercely as the neighbours began to notice her too.

‘Thank you for the lift,’ she said to Matthew and fled into the house with her grandmother, away from the avid curiosity in their eyes. The crowd was dispersing as mothers took their children away, smacking heads and uttering dire warnings about playing on the road. He got into his car and drove away. After all, he knew where she was, and he could come back when the incident with the boy was forgotten.

‘What’s that you have on your back?’ Kitty asked as soon as they were in the house and the door firmly closed.

‘Gran, you know what it is. I needed a new coat, you know I did and it was so cold and I’ve been badly.’ Katie
unbuttoned
the coat and took it off, laying it over the back of a kitchen chair.

‘Are you telling me you bought it yourself? ’Cause if you are you’re a bloody liar, our Katie and that’s swearing!’

‘No I didn’t,’ Katie admitted. ‘Mr Hamilton bought it for me.’ Suddenly Katie was overcome by weakness. She sank into a chair, and began to shiver.

‘What’s the matter with you? Any road, what are you doing here when you’re supposed to working at that hospital?’ Kitty looked properly at her granddaughter’s face for the first time and was shocked to see that it was as white as marble. ‘Have you not been looking after yourself? Here sit in your grandda’s rocking chair by the fire and get warm. You look as though you’ve got consumption! Hey, you haven’t have you?’

As Katie shook her head, Kitty’s anger returned, fuelled with relief. ‘By our Katie, I don’t know, you’re nothing but a worry to me.’ Kitty glared at her granddaughter. Even discounting consumption, she could see that Katie was definitely ill and it looked as though it was serious.

‘I’m all right. But the doctor thinks I should have a few days off work,’ said Katie. Her grandmother was bustling about now, sticking the long steel poker through the bars of the grate to stir the fire into life; settling the black kettle on the top when she had finished and reaching for the teapot and caddy; generally causing a great deal of banging and thumping in her anxiety. She put out mugs and brought stotty cake and a boiled ham shank out of the bread bin in the pantry.

‘Have you been eating properly? You’ve not been missing meals have you, our Katie? I don’t know, you’re not fit to look after yourself, you’re not fit to be let out—’

‘Gran, I’ve told you, I live in a Nurses’ Home, and we get three meals a day and a bit of supper.’

‘Well, what’s the matter then?’ Kitty’s voice was harsh in her anxiety.

Katie gazed at her grandmother and her eyes filled with tears of weakness. The old woman stood there, her arms folded across her thin bosom, and her mouth set in an angry line. But behind the anger there were other emotions; in her eyes there was a lost look like a wounded animal. Katie held out her arms and took Gran into them and held her and after a minute the stiffness went out of her and she relaxed as they cried on each other’s shoulders for what they had lost.

‘It’s all very well, lady, but you still haven’t explained how you came by that coat,’ said Gran and Katie’s heart sank. It was afternoon and Katie had eaten the best meal she had had in a fortnight. They sat by the fire talking about Noah and what a wild one he had been in his younger days drinking and playing toss ha’penny behind the pit heaps and being chased by the polis.

‘Mr Hamilton bought it Gran. I told him I couldn’t accept it but he insisted and he was bringing me back here and it was so cold—’

‘Hmm!’ said Gran. ‘You shouldn’t have put it on. What’s folk going to think? They were all eyes and ears
when
he was here before. There’s not something going on between you two is there? An’ him a married man?’ Kitty gazed at her granddaughter hard yet again. And when Katie didn’t reply immediately her worst fears began to take hold.

‘Katie Benfield, answer me!’ she shouted and Katie jumped in her chair.

‘No, Gran, there isn’t,’ she said. ‘He’s a kind man, that’s all.’

‘A kind man? A boss, a big boss at that? Who the heck do you think you’re trying to fool our Katie? Has that lecher had his way with you?’ she demanded. ‘By our Katie I thought I’d taught you different from that! If your grandda were here he’d be mortified. As it is he’ll be turning in his grave, I never thought to see the day.’

‘No he hasn’t, we didn’t!’ Katie shouted suddenly, unable to listen any more. ‘I told you, he’s just a kind man and I met him when I nursed his wife and he used to come to see her. I told you, Gran, I did.’ Was she protesting too much? Even in her own ears it sounded as though she were.

‘Aye so you did. Then you come walking in here bold as brass, wearing a fancy coat that would have cost a decent man a month’s wages. I tell you, our Katie I don’t know whether to believe you or not. He comes to the end of our street in that fancy car and you in it bold as brass, I could have sunk through the floor when I saw you, I could

Gran had sat down suddenly and Katie’s eyes filled with weak tears as she looked at her, the old woman
looked
so sad and vulnerable once the anger left her.

‘I didn’t want to upset you, Gran, I’m sorry,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll go to the store and get something nice for our tea, will I?’

‘If you like. But don’t you dare wear that flaming coat, do you hear?’

‘No, Gran, I won’t,’ Katie replied. Just at that minute she would have agreed to go to the store in the buff if that was what her gran wanted.

‘Well then,’ said Gran, mollified a little. ‘But are you sure you’re fit for it now?’

‘I am,’ said Katie. ‘It’s not far is it?’ She wanted to feel the wind on her face, smell the smells of Winton Colliery. She needed to.

MATTHEW SPENT THE
rest of the day going round the company mines in the area. He told himself he liked to keep his finger on the pulse of all his enterprises and that was the reason he was still here. There were a thousand and one things he could be doing back in Cleveland but they would have to wait.

The manager of Eden Hope Colliery was just sitting down to drink a cup of tea made for him by his secretary. He looked up at the door when Matthew walked in unannounced, angry at the intrusion but his attitude changed when he saw who it was. The tea slopped in the saucer as he put the cup down hastily and got to his feet.

‘Mr Hamilton! Sir! Mr Parsons did not tell me to expect you today, I’m sorry I’m—’

‘Stop babbling man, I was in the area that’s all. Now, I want to check the books if you don’t mind. I’m not satisfied with the production figures.’

By the time he left the manager, pale and sweating, in the pit yard, Matthew was into his stride. He went into
Winton
, hesitated by the end of the colliery rows and went on to the colliery. Mr Thompson had been forewarned of his coming, however, and was somewhat better prepared and the agent Mr Parsons was there, so Matthew did not have to go into the town to see him. Consequently it was quite early when his business was finished.

He would go back to see if Katie was all right, he decided. To hell with what the old woman thought or any of the nosy neighbours come to that. So it happened that, as he turned the corner to the ends of the rows, he saw Katie just emerging from the back street, dressed in a shapeless coat of indeterminate colour somewhere between grey and brown. Even in the coat she looked beautiful, he reflected. Her large dark eyes contrasted with her fair hair and pale face. He wasn’t used to this urge to protect, which swept over him when he saw her. He stopped the car and leaned over and opened the door.

‘Get in,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you wherever you want to go.’

Katie stopped where she was and stared at him in dismay. Oh, he should just go away, she thought. He caused so much trouble without even realising it.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘Just passing,’ said Matthew blandly. Katie walked over to the car and leaned down to speak to him.

‘Please don’t come here,’ she begged. ‘My gran is going mad, you’ve no idea. I know you mean it kindly, but she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand at all.’

‘Well, I’m sorry. But she’s not here now, is she? And it’s almost dark. No one can see much in the dark. Are
you
going to the shops? I’ll take you there, it’s no trouble.’ Matthew spoke perfectly reasonably yet his tone was insistent. He sat there, making no move at all to go away. In the end Katie just got in the car, thinking it would at least get him to move away from the rows. Besides she was cold in the old, threadbare coat and weary. Her grandmother’s words rang in her ears.

Now as Katie sat in the car she glanced up at Matthew. Had they really made love in that hotel or had she dreamed it all? If they had, she should hate him, she should be scandalised at him, she should be stamping mad at him. Yet she wasn’t. There was no room in her for any other emotion than her despair and unhappiness at the deaths of the two men across from the table to a chair and was sitting prodding a ring of blue in the ham, a sort of fine sacking.

‘I got some pressed tongue, Gran,’ said Katie. ‘I know you like a bit of tongue. It’ll be nice with your homemade bread and a bit of but—’ She stopped and stared at the ring of blue, already outlined on the harn. Gran was beginning to fill it in, stabbing the prodder and cloth through the harn over and over. She didn’t look up at Katie.