The Good Provider (3 page)

The farmer let out a strangled cry. He doubled over. He had no mind for her now, no desire. Everything was wiped away by the waves of pain that radiated from his groin. Kirsty had hit the mark fair and square.

She shouldered him aside, scrambled from under him and ran from the cottage into the yard. She stumbled, rose, shook down her skirts, ran on. She expected pursuit and glanced behind her. To her surprise she saw that Clegg was still as she had left him, doubled over on the stone floor of the kitchen. Kirsty’s control evaporated. She wept. She ran, and wept, turned the corner of the byre and sped down the path that ribboned down the vale under a big cold luminous sky.

She was still weeping when she reached the field gate that gave access to the grazings of Dalnavert and the path to the Nicholsons’ house.

Coals cracked in the polished grate. Their flames, reflected in brass and copper ornaments, masked the kitchen with cosy contentment akin to one of the depictions of domestic bliss on the cover of
Leisure Hour
, a journal to which Mrs Nicholson regularly subscribed and whose general philosophy was her gospel and her ideal. Sometimes, especially on raw spring evenings, Craig shared his mother’s simple faith in warmth and companionship as the bedrock of family life. Seated on the old ‘nursing-chair’, a low straw-bottomed object, sharing the light of fire and oil-lamp with his mother, Craig rotated a little boot on his fist and snipped at the twist of wire by which he had fixed the torn eyelet to the leather. He put the card of wire and pliers to one side and with a gentleness that amounted almost to stealth, surveyed his handiwork from several angles.

Lorna’s feet were growing at an alarming rate. The boots would not last her much longer. Money would have to be found to buy her a new pair. They were ugly things anyway, not right for such a dainty creature. Soon Lorna would rebel against them, would girn for footwear that was grown-up and fashionable. Craig crushed the prickle of wire with the ball of his thumb and dropped a dab of spit on to a scuff mark on the boot’s broad toe. He dabbed polish on to a duster and smoothed it into the worn leather. Behind him the click of the knitting-needles ceased.

Craig heard the mutter of his mother’s voice counting off stitches. He did not turn, but, like Gordon and Lorna at the table, crouched just that wee bit lower over his task in the hope that Mam might respect the quiet hour and choose to prolong it.

At any moment, though, Mam would say, ‘You pair, off to your beds.’

Lorna would whine and Gordon would begin a long harangue about being treated like a bairn, and Dad would say, ‘Ach, Madge, let them bide up a while longer,’ and the nightly contest of wills would begin.

Craig sympathised with his sister and brother. At twenty, he was not too old to remember the impatience that once possessed him, a hunger to be grown up, to be responsible for your own comings and goings. He would not take sides tonight, however, even if the argument developed into a howling match and Mam shouted at him, ‘Take that boy,’ meaning Gordon, ‘out of my sight.’ Gordon would turn defiant and there would be a scuffle and he, Craig, would have to put a headlock on his brother and drag him through the long hall and into the icy bedroom at the back of the cottage while Mam cornered Lorna and marched her to the tub for a cold scrub that would be more like a punishment than an ablution. All the while Bob Nicholson would sit in his chair by the fire smiling through the clean sweet reek of whisky, distanced from petty squabbles not by his position as paterfamilias but by meekness and by drink.

Bob Nicholson was a secret drinker
par excellence
. Except at funerals, weddings and on Hogmanay, when he would allow himself to be pressed into taking a wee dram, Craig had never seen him lip so much as a mouthful of any alcoholic beverage. It had not occurred to Craig until a couple of years ago that, while he had never seen his father ranting drunk, no more had he ever seen him totally sober. It was Gordon, quick-witted and wise in the ways of the world, who had first interpreted Mam’s endless recriminations, coded to keep the awful truth from the children. Not even Gordon, however, had ever unearthed one of the caches of whisky that Dad had planted about the cottage, and, it was assumed, about the fields from here to Bankhead. If Madge Nicholson knew where her husband kept his stock of bottles, she gave no indication of it. She certainly never asked him out loud within earshot of her offspring.

Mr Sanderson would know of it – Mr Sanderson knew everything – but Bob Nicholson still ploughed as straight a furrow as any day-labourer at Bankhead. Bankhead earnings, as much as the income from the smallholding, kept the Nicholsons afloat, and Bob in whisky. Dalnavert was not, strictly speaking, a ‘small’ holding at all. Indeed, the farm was too large for Bob and his sons to cope with and many of its acres lay virtually untended and understocked. It was Mam’s ambition – Gordon said – that had prompted Dad into taking on Dalnavert in the first place. Mam wanted to be the lady of a Mains the size of Bankhead one day, since she had been a house-servant there when she was a girl and fancied the life.

Dalnavert was demanding, would be even more demanding if Bob had let it take hold upon him. Craig found himself working all hours of the day and night just to shore up his dad’s neglect. Gordon had already announced his intention to shake the dust of Dalnavert from his feet as soon as he turned eighteen, to head for Glasgow or Edinburgh. Even Lorna was not enamoured of farm life and vowed that she would never marry a farmer, not for all the tea in China.

Craig, though, had no plan or notion in his head as to what would become of him or what he would do with himself. When he dreamed he dreamed only of Kirsty Barnes, of holding her in his arms, of being alone with her in a warm bed in a warm room. The fact that he saw little of Kirsty these days only intensified his longing and desire. But when Craig mentioned Kirsty’s name, however casually, his mother would sniff her disapproval and give him a lecture about ‘wasting himself’ – whatever that meant. Any sort of regular courtship was unthinkable at this stage.

The tapping needles were silent. Craig tensed. Bob’s chair creaked as he reached up to the shelf for his tobacco pouch and fumbled his pipe from his waistcoat pocket.

Dark, slender and small, and looking far younger than sixteen, Gordon spread his elbows about the book that lay open on the table before him and pretended to be absolutely engrossed in it. Lifting her shoulders like a gull before flight, Lorna shifted in her chair.

‘
You pair, off to your beds
.’

Gordon feigned deafness. Lorna, less adept, gave a little moan and settled her bottom stubbornly on the seat of the chair. The knitting-needles clashed like swords as Mam thrust them into the pattern bag by her side. Her shadow cut off the lamplight. Craig swung his legs to allow her to pass.

‘
Bed, I say, and bed I mean
.’

Aye, there would be a scene again tonight. Such petty crises had become the core of family relationships. Craig hated them. He could see no reason for them and tended to blame his dad’s lack of authority for causing them to occur.

‘
Did you hear me?
’ Mam shouted.

Nobody answered her question.

Straightening his shoulders Bob Nicholson took his thumb from the bowl of his pipe and the stem from his mouth, cocked his head to one side and, to Craig’s astonishment, said, ‘Hold your tongue a minute, Madge.’

‘
What did you say?
’

‘Ssshh, Madge,’ Bob told her mildly.

Lorna had heard it too. Timid at the best of times she rushed from her seat and crowded against her father as if she expected a ghost to materialise through the kitchen door or robbers to break it down.

‘What the hell sort o’ noise is that?’ Bob asked.

The faint plaintive sound was utterly unfamiliar.

‘It’s just a damned cat,’ said Madge.

‘No, yon’s no cat,’ said Craig.

‘Burglars?’ Gordon suggested.

The latch of the outside door rattled.

Since his father showed no signs of extricating himself from his chair, Craig took the initiative. ‘I’ll see what it is.’

Swiftly he crossed the room, yanked open the door and vanished into the hallway.

He let out an exclamation, asked a question.

The answer was a sob.

‘Who is it?’ Madge demanded, then raised a hand to her mouth as Craig ushered in the girl, Kirsty Barnes.

‘Well, well, it’s just Clegg’s lassie.’ Bob Nicholson settled back, pipe stuck in his mouth again as if the whole of the mystery had been suddenly and completely solved.

Craig guided the girl to his mother’s chair by the fire and gently pressed her down. She was in a dreadful state, hair plastered against her cheeks, dress and shoes spattered with mud. She was sobbing as if her heart would break.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Craig said.

He was on his knees by the girl’s side, Madge and the family forgotten in his concern for Kirsty. He touched her shivering shoulder with a tenderness that pricked Madge Nicholson’s heart like a pin.

‘What d’you want here?’ Madge snapped.

‘Gi’e the lassie time to catch her breath, Madge,’ Bob said.

‘She’s been up to somethin’,’ Madge declared.

‘Come on, Kirsty, tell me what’s wrong,’ Craig said.

Kirsty laid her forehead against Craig’s chest. He hugged her awkwardly while she whispered to him in a voice so low that not even Gordon could make it out. Madge Nicholson observed the display of intimacy, heard the whispering and began to have an inkling of the girl’s purpose here. When Craig’s gentleness turned to sudden fury she knew that her guess was correct.

‘Damn him, damn the bastard,’ Craig raged.

‘Clegg?’ said Bob, nodding.

‘Damn the filthy swine. He tried, the old bastard.’

‘Tried?’ said Gordon from the corner. ‘Tried what?’

‘Never you mind,’ said Madge.

‘I’ll – I’ll kill him, so I will,’ Craig cried.

Madge put a hand on her son’s shoulder, offering what seemed at that moment like comfort and understanding. She pushed him away from the girl and leaned forward.

‘You led him on, I suppose,’ she said.

‘Mother, for Christ’s sake!’ Craig exploded.

‘He just – just came,’ said Kirsty. ‘I’d been down to Bankhead to borrow the horse. I was soaked so I went into the bothy to change into somethin’ dry. He – he was at the window. Starin’ at me. At the bothy window.’

‘You knew he was there?’

‘No, no, I swear.’

‘Madge, leave her alone, for God’s sake,’ Bob said.

‘Keep out of it, you,’ Madge said, without turning. ‘Did he
touch
you?’

‘Aye, he threw me – threw me down on the floor.’

‘Where?’

‘In the kitchen, in the cottage.’

‘Jesus, I’ll kill him,’ Craig hissed.

‘Did he do it?’

‘What?’

‘Do not play coy wi’ me. You know fine what I mean.’

‘No,’ said Kirsty. ‘No, he didn’t – didn’t manage.’

‘When you went into the kitchen after he’d ogled you, what were you wearin’?’

‘What’s that got to do—?’ Craig began.

Madge ignored him.

‘This, what I’m wearin’ now,’ Kirsty said.

‘Sunday best,’ said Madge Nicholson, vindicated.

‘I’ve nothin’ else, Mrs Nicholson. It’s all I had dry.’

‘You led him on.’

‘Enough, Madge.’ Bob heaved himself out of his chair.

The unexpected movement provoked Madge to withdraw a little.

‘We’ll see what Mr Clegg has to say in respect of your accusations,’ she declared.

Craig, a little calmer now, scowled. Mr Clegg! He had never before heard his mother refer to their neighbour with such formality. She had always been scathing about the tenant of Hawkhead.

‘Please, please, don’t send me back,’ Kirsty begged.

‘Where else are you to go, may I ask?’ said Madge. ‘Besides, you’re Mr Clegg’s servant.’

‘Aye, but he canna do what he likes wi’ me.’

Bob Nicholson, who had slipped away without anyone in the kitchen noticing, returned at that moment with a glass in his hand. He offered it to Kirsty who, with a questioning glance at Craig, accepted.

‘What’s that you’re givin’ her?’ Madge enquired.

‘Medicine,’ Bob said. ‘Knock it back, lass. It’ll steady your nerves.’

Kirsty closed her eyes, obediently tipped the small quantity of liquor into her mouth and swallowed. She gasped, coughed and handed the empty glass back to Mr Nicholson.

The man said, ‘Is that no’ better?’

‘Aye, Mr Nicholson.’

The effect of the whisky was startling. It seemed to loosen a knot of shame and embarrassment in Kirsty. She put her head into her hands to hide her face and began, once more, to weep.

The sight of the girl’s distress stirred Craig’s temper once more. He strode out into the hallway, whisked his jacket from the cupboard and snatched his boots from the rack and carried them back into the kitchen.