The River Flows On (36 page)

‘I’ll get it myself.’ He hadn’t raised his voice. His tone was perfectly neutral. So why was Kate’s hand shaking as she lifted her own cup to her lips?

Unable to stand the tension any longer, Marjorie rushed in where angels fear to tread.

‘Are you having any luck in finding a position, Mr Baxter?’

Robbie got down a cup and saucer from the shelf, poured in milk and tea, carried it over and placed it on the high mantelpiece above the range before he answered.

‘There’s no work, Mrs Drummond. You of all people should know that.’ Donaldson’s had closed its gates for good some time before Brown’s had suspended work on the 534.

Robbie took a sip of tea, replaced his cup carefully in the saucer and then stood there, looking down his nose at all three of them - like a prince of the blood royal reviewing his palace guard and finding it wanting. Robert Baxter, thought Kate grimly, you and I are going to have words later.

He lifted his cup and took another mouthful of tea. Marjorie, frowning a little, also drank some tea. Poor Marjorie, thought Kate, she’s trying desperately to work out what to say to calm these troubled waters. Jack allowed a little smile to play about his handsome mouth. He was doing what he always had done, taking a malicious enjoyment in the scene unfolding before his eyes - making no effort to smooth things out.

Kate sneaked a look at Robbie, standing as still as a guardsman by the mantelpiece. He was thin and pale and his jacket was threadbare. It was still buttoned up, although he’d loosened the yellow muffler he wore around his neck in the winter. He was badly in need of a haircut. He looked tired and restless and his mouth was tight and unsmiling. There were fine lines on his forehead which hadn’t been there six months ago.

In contrast, Marjorie and Jack looked well-off, well-fed and well-dressed. Jack also looked completely relaxed, a man with no worries. Yet, when she compared the two men, Kate saw something else. For all his shabbiness and fatigue, there was strength in Robert Baxter - and courage, too. Life had flung everything it could at him, and he was still standing, facing up to it all with pride and dignity. If he was going down, he was going down fighting.

Struck by all this - and by another thought so unexpected it took her breath away - Kate was caught unawares when Marjorie, after a brief sideways glance at her, addressed herself to Robbie.

‘Actually, Mr Baxter, I’ve been putting a proposition to Kate which might help you out a bit.’

Kate wanted to groan. Didn’t Marjorie know anything about masculine pride, what a fragile flower it was? No, of course she didn’t. She was married to a man who didn’t have one iota of it. He never had done. Content to live off his mother’s money, then his wife’s, Jack was always ready to blame ill-fortune on anything but his own lack of effort and direction. Always ready to let someone else do the dirty work. Like Suzanne Douglas that night at the Art School. That had been no accident, as Jack had pretended. Funny how she had refused to admit that to herself until now.

Marjorie was in full flood. Kate picked out a few words.

‘A wonderful opportunity for Kate ... allow her to use her artistic skills - earn some money for the family...’

Robbie stood as still as a statue, apparently listening politely to Marjorie. Kate knew better. His tea, lying ignored on the mantelpiece, must be stone cold by now.

Kate could hear the subdued sound of Mr Asquith’s purring, coming from the box bed. Jack Drummond looked up and caught her eye. She had a sudden memory, crystal clear in its intensity; Jack, sitting in the kitchen at Yoker, stroking Mr Asquith with those long, elegant fingers ... She flushed and dropped her eyes. She never knew what gave her the courage to look up again. He had been smiling at her bowed head. She turned to gaze at Robbie.

I wish I could do portraits, she thought. I’d like to capture him like this. So handsome - so fierce. She loved him for it - loved his stubborn, infuriating pride. Aware, somehow, that Jack Drummond’s eyes were still on her, she turned her head again. He wasn’t smiling now.

Kate had always thought Marjorie had a rather pleasant voice - deep for a woman and with the merest hint of a well-bred accent - but it was grating on her now. Shut up, Marjorie, she pleaded silently. Then a tiny thought, but intense. Oh God, please make Robbie agree to this. I want to do this so badly, and it would help so much. The money Marjorie was offering would make all the difference.

There was complete silence in the room when she finally stopped talking. It was Jack Drummond who broke the silence.

‘Well, Robbie, what do you say? It would be a great opportunity for Kate. Give you some extra cash. Make things a trifle easier.’

Kate waited for Robbie to explode. He did it quietly, and without noticeable fuss, but he did it nevertheless. Politely to Marjorie and much less politely to Jack Drummond, he told them to go away, that the Baxter family was quite capable of looking after itself, thank you very much, that his wife wasn’t going out to work. He didn’t actually say, not while he had breath left in his body, but that was clearly what he meant.

‘But Mr Baxter-’ Marjorie began, dismayed.

Robbie’s face darkened. ‘I believe I’ve made the position clear, Mrs Drummond.’

‘But Mr Baxter-’ Marjorie said again.

Jack Drummond rose to his feet. ‘Don’t waste your breath, darling. I think we should probably leave now.’ He raised those fair eyebrows, in the gesture Kate had once found so endearing.

Robbie looked steadily at them both. ‘I think that would be best, yes.’ Then he said, with magnificent condescension, ‘My wife will see you out.’ As though, thought Kate, I was showing them out of a palace instead of a single end at the bottom of Kilbowie Road.

Chapter 24

The big door swung heavily shut behind Marjorie and Jack Drummond. Coming back into the room, Kate saw that her husband was standing where he had remained throughout the visit, motionless by the range. He was staring into space, but turned immediately at her step.

‘Kate...’

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, cutting him off. ‘Don’t speak to me! Just don’t speak to me!’

He let out a long sigh. The stiffness went out of his body and he threw himself into the chair so recently vacated by Jack Drummond. Taking her at her word, he said nothing, adding fuel to Kate’s smouldering anger.

‘How could you?’ she raged.

He smiled blandly up at her. ‘How could I what? Tell that cocky bugger - excuse me - where to go?’

Infuriated by that smile, she yelled at him: ‘You’ve just told some money where to go! Money we could be doing with!’

The smile slid from his face as though someone had wiped it off with a cloth. ‘You’d take money from them?’

‘No! I’d earn money! Doing what I’m good at. Can’t you understand that?’

‘I can understand that you want to show me up in front of everybody. My wife going out to work while I can’t get any?’ He shook his dark head. ‘I don’t think so, Kathleen.’

For some unaccountable reason, his use of her full name riled Kate even further.

‘So it’s your pride that’s hurt, Robert Baxter? You’re not man enough to admit that I might be able to earn good money when you can’t?’

She stomped across the room and stood over him, hands on hips. A strand of her shoulder-length hair strayed across her mouth. Angrily, she blew it away. ‘Is that what this is about? Your pride?’

His head bowed, his voice was so quiet she had to strain to hear the words. ‘Maybe my pride’s all I’ve got left.’

She was too angry to hear the plea in his voice.

‘Don’t you speak to me about pride, Robert Baxter!’ She was shouting at him now. ‘Do you think I don’t know anything about pride? What about having to tramp for miles to buy second day bread? What about having to ask for a bone for the dog, when the butcher knows damn’ well we don’t have one - that I’m using it to make soup for ourselves? What about trying to sell my paintings and having people looking down their noses at them? What about having to sell my lovely coat and wear that horrible old thing?’ She gestured wildly to the back of the door where the tweed coat hung. ‘How many times do you think I’ve had to put my pride in my pocket? Answer me that, Robert Baxter!’

His shaggy head bent, Robbie was studying his hands, clasped loosely in his lap. Infuriated by his lack of response, she put her hands on his shoulders, and shook him hard. His head snapped up. Stormy grey eyes met furious green ones.

Then, shrugging off her hands, he stood up, suddenly not calm at all.

‘I don’t want you to work!’ he yelled. ‘It’s the man’s place to do that! Can you not understand that, woman?’

Kate was rendered momentarily speechless. She stared at him, not believing what he had just said.

‘You don’t want me to work?’ Spluttering, she waved a hand to indicate the room in which they stood. ‘What the hell do you think I do all day?’

Robbie winced. ‘Don’t swear.’

Kate’s chin went up. ‘I’ll swear worse than that before I’ve finished. So you don’t want me to work. Do you have any idea what I do all day? I look after Grace, I keep this place clean, I dust, I polish, I scrub, I cook. I clean the fire, I set the fire, I put coal on it - and the coal dust gets everywhere. I go all over Clydebank trying to stretch what money we’ve got as far as it’ll go. Then I come home and I start all over again. Washing clothes, scrubbing, cooking. Trying to put something tasty on the table every night with precious little money to do it with.’

Her voice wobbled. She clamped her mouth tightly shut for a few seconds and started again.

‘And you don’t call that work? How dare you insult me like that, Robert Baxter!’

He had heard the tremble in her voice. He reached out a tentative hand towards her but she was too angry to allow him to speak.

‘Have you seen the state of my hands?’ She thrust them out to him and hastily withdrew them. Like her voice, they were trembling.

‘They’re red and dry and hard from scrubbing and cooking and everything else that I do. I keep this place like a wee palace. Have you any idea what it’s like keeping a place clean and tidy and not even being able to afford a wee bunch of flowers to brighten it up? Have you? Have you?’ Her voice rose with each question.

‘Kate. I’m sorry...’

‘I’m sorry too.’ Abruptly, she walked away from him.

Brought up short by the jaw-box, she hugged herself and stood staring out. She took a big, shuddering deep breath. It lifted her shoulders and her breasts.

Behind her, Robbie was silent. Trying to work out how to deal with me, she thought, a part of her brain, as usual, taking a step back and observing what was going on, rather than being a part of it. They’d had disagreements before, but never anything as bitter as this. Well, thought Kate, lifting her chin and tossing her head, it’s up to him to speak, up to him to offer me an apology.

When none was forthcoming, she swung around. He had obviously been staring intently at her back but she couldn’t read the expression on his face.

‘I want to do this,’ she said. ‘I want to take the work Marjorie’s offering me.’

Had his expression softened? If it had, it hardened again when she spoke.

‘No. No wife of mine is going out to work. Particularly not while her husband’s idle.’ The grey eyes had grown steely.

Kate curled her lip. ‘No wife of yours? How many have you got, Robbie? I want to do this.’ She was too proud to plead with him, but she added one more sentence. ‘It makes sense for me to do this.’

He gave her a stern look. ‘No. And that’s final.’

Provoked beyond all endurance, Kate bunched her fingers into fists.

‘Oh, in the name of God! Marjorie’s offering me a good job with good money, and you can’t get a job at the moment. Don’t be so bloody pig-headed!’