The Shadow of the Sycamores (46 page)

‘I made a salad. It’s on the marble shelf in the larder and I told him to help himself if I was late.’

‘That’s all right, then. When I get to the end of Waterloo Street this afternoon, I’ll see if Jack Rennie’ll run me out to Corbie Den. That’ll be about two o’clock, or just after, but I don’t suppose Leo’ll mind.’

He did notice a faint, and quickly stifled, look of what he took to be anxiety for her mother on Mara’s face, and wrote it off as natural. He was worried about Fay himself and felt a lot easier knowing that Mara was with her.

It was after two when Jack Rennie drew his Austin up at the end of the long, winding path up to the Fergusons’ door. ‘You go on up, Henry,’ he told his passenger. ‘I’ll bide here and have a draw of my pipe.’

‘I’ll not be long.’

‘Nae hurry, Henry. Tak’ your time.’

Not wanting to keep his friend waiting, however, Henry walked smartly up the garden and walked in without knocking.

‘Where the hell have you been till this time?’ Leo roared, not turning his wheelchair round. ‘I know damn fine you’ve been with somebody, you slut! I heard the car stopping. Has he got a house you can go to? Do you get a thrill out of making him be unfaithful to his wife? Well? What are you standing there for? Say something, damn you! Tell me the truth! I’m sick to death of your lies so tell me the truth!’

His insides churning with the appalled realisation of what his daughter had been suffering, Henry walked silently forward, taking up his stance in front of the crippled man. He said nothing, just looked at him in disdain.

‘Oh, God!’ Leo exclaimed, his hands going up to his face. ‘I didn’t know it was you, Henry! What’s wrong? Has something happened to Samara?’

Henry kept his voice and his temper under control. ‘Nothing has happened to your wife. I asked her to stay with her mother. She’s not very well.’

His anger at being left alone for so long was too much for
the younger man. ‘Oh, I see!’ His voice dripped now with sarcasm. ‘Her mother’s not very well so she chooses to leave her disabled husband for hours. That’s a bloody fine attitude to take! I could have died and she wouldn’t have cared a fig – the whore!’

This proved more than Henry could take and he slapped the other man across the face. ‘If this is how you treat her, you selfish bugger, I hope she does find herself another man!’

Even the shock of the slap did not stop the accusations. ‘So you encourage her, is that it? Have you been covering up for her for years? I often wondered at a young woman in her prime staying with a wreck like me but she’d been getting satisfaction elsewhere, with her father’s help.’ He scowled as a new concept struck him. ‘Maybe it’s been you? Eh, Henry? Is your Fairy Fay getting too old for you? Do you prefer a …’

Enraged himself beyond all control, Henry stopped the flow of vindictiveness by punching the sneering mouth. ‘And I’m not apologising for that, Leo Ferguson! If you weren’t in a wheelchair, I’d have knocked you out! When I think of all the years my daughter has sacrificed herself to look after you and accusations like that are all the thanks she gets, I could kill you! Well, you’ve fouled your own nest, as the saying goes. I’ll go through and get some of Mara’s clothes but I’ll be back for the rest, don’t you worry! She will not be coming back here, I can assure you of that, and you can please yourself what you do.’

He swivelled round, did as he had said and was back in a few moments, carrying a bundle of clothing. ‘I have a car waiting for me.’

‘Please, Henry,’ pleaded the younger man, cringing away, ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. I’d been on my own for hours, and I’m always scared something happens to me and …’

‘There’s no excuse for the things you said! I feel like leaving you here to rot but I’ll send the doctor up. He can maybe arrange for somebody to come in or he could get you into a nursing home.’ He went to the door, his legs shaking, his heart thumping dangerously, and strode out, ignoring the sound of
weeping as he slammed the door behind him.

When he reached the car, he muttered, ‘Don’t ask, Jack. Just take me home.’

The past year had been hectic for Henry Rae, in more ways than one. Firstly, in his own family circle, there had been the trauma of getting Mara to settle in. In spite of what Leo had put her through, she swore that she still loved him and was quite prepared to carry on looking after him. Her father did his best to convince her – without giving her the exact details of his fateful afternoon visit – that Leo was past the stage where he could be cared for at home. It was fortunate for all concerned that Doctor Berry endorsed this opinion and, after corresponding with James Ferguson, had had the young man transferred to a very expensive private nursing home near Edinburgh.

Mara’s shame at deserting a husband who needed her was eased by the letter she received from his father shortly afterwards, thanking her for all she had done over the years and assuring her not to feel that she had let Leo down. Wanting to be near her ailing mother, she refused his offer of making Corbie Den over to her and acceded to his request that she should not visit his son.

‘It would only upset you,’ Ferguson had written. ‘It seems that the piece of shrapnel that had been lodged near his brain and has slowly shifted over the years, putting more pressure on it. He is past recognising anyone now.’

It was not a satisfactory situation for the poor woman but she occupied herself in looking after her parents and young Billy, who helped by chopping sticks, taking in pails of coal and anything else that needed to be done. It took time but they eventually got into a regular routine.

The old king, George V, died in February, and Mara had to spruce up her father’s official uniform for the proclamation of the death and the accession of the Prince of Wales as Edward VIII. There were several events to be organised now for his Coronation but circumstances changed with the news that he wished to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, who was still married to her second husband.

Opinions about this were divided not only in the Rae household but also all over the country. Henry and Billy backed Mr Baldwin, the Prime Minister, in his stand against such a marriage, while Fay and Mara, romantics both, hoped that the new king would thumb his nose at the cabinet and marry Mrs Simpson when her second divorce was final. In December, Edward settled the controversy himself by broadcasting his intention to abdicate – saying simply that he could not carry out his duties as king without the support of the woman he loved.

So Henry had another proclamation to make and Edward’s brother, the Duke of York, came to the throne as George VI. The date of the coronation was not changed so all the souvenirs already made bearing Edward’s name had to be sold off cheaply and others made with George and Elizabeth on them.

The whole business had taken a toll on Henry. ‘I’m sick of all this rush,’ he declared one evening. ‘I’m going to retire when the coronation’s past.’

He had expected some argument from his wife but nothing seemed to affect Fay these days – good news or bad news, they were all one to her. ‘Should we get the doctor in to your mother?’ he asked Mara after Fay had gone to bed that night.

She shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. Father. Some days she’s better than others. I think she gets depressed – you know, losing two sons, then my marriage coming to an end, it was bound to tell on her.’

‘She was fine for a while, when Billy came first,’ Henry reminded her.

‘That was because he was somebody young for her to look after. Maybe I should have stayed at Corbie Den and not come here to make her feel she’s not needed any more?’

‘It’s a pity you never had any children, Mara,’ Henry said without thinking, ‘that would have …’ Realising his gaffe, he hurried on in embarrassment, ‘I mean … I’m sorry … oh, Mara, I know it wasn’t your fault.’

‘I would have loved to have children,’ she said quietly, ‘but things didn’t work out that way.’

‘No.’ After a long pause, he said, ‘James Ferguson hasn’t written for a while.’

‘I’ll hear soon enough if … anything has changed.’

In one of life’s eerie coincidences, the news came the very next forenoon. Mara had swept the kitchen floor, taken the mats out to shake them and was putting them down on the linoleum again when someone knocked at the front door. ‘I’ll go,’ Fay said, moving slowly.

Noticing a car sitting in the road, Mara wondered who it could be but was still shocked when her mother brought in James Ferguson. ‘Leo?’ she gasped.

‘Yes, my dear. I’m afraid he passed away last night, peacefully in his sleep, they told me.’

‘I’m glad of that.’ Mara couldn’t think what else to say.

‘I wanted to let you know myself. I wanted to tell you how grateful I was to you, taking him off our hands for so many years.’

‘I didn’t do it to take him off your hands. I loved him, I still do.’

‘Yes, I know, and I am sorry if I have upset you. He was a very lucky man to have you to look after him …’

‘Not lucky altogether though,’ she murmured. ‘He was such an upright man, kind and understanding, until …’

‘Yes, it must have been as hard on you as it was on any of us.’

Fay broke into the uncomfortably long silence that fell now. ‘Would you care for a cup of tea, Mr Ferguson?’

‘No, thank you. I have left my wife in Aberdeen doing some shopping and I promised to be back in time for lunch.’ He stood up awkwardly and held out his hand to her. ‘Leo used
to tell us how you welcomed him into your home when he was courting Samara. Thank you for that.’

Mara got to her feet. ‘I’ll see you out.’

She went right to the car with him, wanting to ask a question she did not want her mother to hear. ‘When’s the funeral?’

His sad eyes dropped. ‘They are burying him tomorrow at the nursing home – they have a graveyard in the grounds. I … I’d rather you didn’t come, my dear. It’s going to be painful enough for me as it is.’

‘I’m his wife,’ she whispered. ‘I should be there. I want to be there.’

‘Yes, of course you must come. I was wrong there and I am sorry.’

‘I understand.’

After asking the details of where and when, she let him drive off. She didn’t really know how she felt. She hadn’t been expecting it to be so sudden yet his father had said it was for the best – that Leo had been in a dark world of his own ever since he was taken there.

Thankfully, when she went inside again, her mother said only, ‘It had to come, Mara, dear.’

‘I know.’

That evening, when Billy went out to meet some friends, she told her parents that she was going to the funeral, sure that they would be against it. Henry’s mouth pursed in disapproval but Fay rushed in before he could say anything. ‘He was her husband, Henry, and no matter what happened between them, if she wants to go, it is not up to us to stop her.’

Mara was glad she had decided to go to the funeral. There had been no lengthy eulogy, no words of praise, until she stood up. ‘He was a brave man,’ she had begun, the strength of her voice surprising even herself. ‘The life he knew before he went into the army was tragically taken from him and, although he once walked proudly and erectly, he spent his last years – so many years – in a wheelchair. I loved him with all my heart and I will always remember him as he used to be, a decent, loving
young man any girl would have been proud to have as a husband. I was the lucky one.’

She had turned away then, blinded by tears, but now, on the train home, she felt better than she had done for some time. James Ferguson had taken her for a meal afterwards, mainly to tell her that Leo had left everything to her. She had said that she didn’t want anything but, after he told her to take time to think about it, common sense took over. She had often worried, lately, about how they would manage when her father retired. She would have to look after both parents and couldn’t take a job so there would just be young Billy’s board money coming in – although the council might give her father a small pension. Her inheritance – in the region of ten thousand pounds apparently – would mean that she need never worry again. It was a good feeling!

In the week leading up to the coronation celebrations, Henry was more grateful than ever for Billy’s help and, on one wet and windy night, they made the church their last call. Although it was June, it was quite cold outside, and the kirk itself seemed to be even colder. While Billy ran up into the organ loft to make sure that the pipes were in perfect condition for the special service of thanksgiving for the new king and queen, Henry walked slowly up the centre aisle checking that every row of pews was spotlessly clean and the hassocks were all in place.

They had shut the heavy oak door behind them but he could still feel an ice-cold draught gnawing at his feet and he thought of leaving the two choir enclosures and the pulpit area until another night – there was still plenty of time. Yet something made him carry on.

Discovering a hassock missing from one row of pews, he wondered if someone had shifted it. It didn’t turn up anywhere else and his hands and feet were actually ‘dirling’ with cold so he decided to forget about it and check the two stalls where the choir always sat or stood.

‘You check the left side,’ he instructed Billy, who had made his appearance again, ‘and I’ll take the right.’

The fifteen-year-old being quicker on his feet, he reached the pulpit first and stopped in amazement at what he saw. He beckoned Henry to join him and they looked down on the beautiful sight of a young girl curled up beneath the lectern with an infant in her arms. She was using the missing hassock as a pillow and was sound asleep.

‘What’ll we do?’ whispered Billy.

Henry scratched his head uncertainly. ‘I wonder where she’s come from?’

‘They’ll get a chill if we leave them here.’

‘Aye, you’re right. We’d better waken her.’ He gave a few genteel coughs but the girl didn’t stir so he bent down and patted her gently on the shoulder.

She sat up instantly. ‘Please don’t make us go away,’ she pleaded, her blue eyes moist with tears, her cheeks still rosy from sleep.

‘It’s too cold here for you. Have you nowhere else to go?’