When the Bough Breaks (27 page)

‘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.'

‘North, 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.'

Helping Dennis to bed proved to be an awkward job. He had insisted she shouldn't have their things moved downstairs, turning the seldom used drawing room into a bedroom. Instead he reached the stairs using his crutches and swinging his body so that he moved both legs at the same time. Then, gripping the newel post he seemed to throw himself so that he could sit on a stair. From there, painfully slowly, he moved upward, easing himself from stair to stair by taking his full weight on his arms. Kathie stepped forward.

‘Let me get round you. From behind you I can help take your weight,' she said, her foot already on the bottom tread of the steep straight flight.

‘Stay out of the way,' he told her with a glare. ‘I'll soon get the hang of it. In that rehabilitation dump there were lifts.' She knew this was all part of his battle for independence so, even though she longed to be part of his battle, she stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hands gripped into two fists as slowly he advanced to the upstairs landing. ‘OK,' he said, a hint of triumph in his voice even though he was out of breath, ‘now you can come up with my crutches.'

So he progressed until finally they were in the bedroom with the door closed.

‘Remember how we always used to leave it open in case Jess wanted us in the night?' For Kathie there was comfort in talking about the child who had been the centre of their universe.

‘Don't! Jess has gone,
gone
, you hear me, like everything else.' He started to undress and she couldn't fail to see how his hands trembled. ‘Thank God to be rid of this damned uniform.'

‘Amen to that,' she said softly. ‘Den, the two of us, we can fight anything. We'll make a go of it however hard the challenge.'

‘You can't know, Kathie. Don't help me, but just imagine what it's like: I want to put my watch on the table by the bed but you've leant my crutches against the wall by the door where I can't reach them. I can't bloody move without them.'

She took a step towards the crutches, then stopped.

‘What's the saying about necessity being the father of invention? Den, you came all the way up the stairs without crutches so work yourself along the bed using your arms and . . .' She watched while he did as she said and put his watch on the bedside table just as he had every night they had been together. ‘Well done! Another hurdle crossed.'

But the fight had gone out of him. Sitting on the side of the bed he let her undress him.

‘Now I need a pee,' he whined.

‘Then my darling you shall have one. Slip your arms into your dressing gown. That's it. Now here are your crutches. Off you go. You only need one hand to steer your dinkle, and one crutch to prop you up. You'll be fine.' She knew how near he was to breaking point as she passed first one crutch and then the second to him.

‘Kathie,' and at the sound of his laugh she looked at him, her eyes bright with hope. ‘Oh Kathie, what would I do without you? Is the kid asleep? Is her door shut?' For his dressing gown was hanging open leaving him to the world displayed.

‘Sound asleep. Den – you
won't
– but
if
you want me, just shout.'

‘I'll be OK.'

That was another hurdle crossed. He was quite a long time and when he got back she was almost ready for bed. The night was warm and she had pulled back the covers. As he sat on the edge, with one swift movement she lifted both his legs onto the bed.

‘You don't want pyjamas any more than I want a nightie. We want just
us.
' She laid down next to him, her body against his. Soon she would have to get out of bed to turn off the light and open the heavy curtains, soon but not yet. It was important they could see each other. There was nothing of the seductress in Kathie, but that they should make love had never mattered more than on that night. She must think just of Den, Den who had been the centre of her world for more than half her life. In that instant she was carried back to those moments by the stile. She mustn't think of Bruce. Den was her past and Den was her future.

‘Kathie, I tell you, I can't.'

‘Yes you can and you want to. Just look at you.' She spoke softly, her voice affectionate and teasing.

‘Yes, look at me.' Hardly moving his mouth, he seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth. ‘I want to sink deep, deep into you. But I know when I try to it'll be gone, shrivelled to nothing. I know, Kathie. I've tried often enough but one touch and it's useless. Doesn't work any better than my damned legs.'

She moved to lie half on him.

‘If that's the way it has to be, then we can live without that sort of loving. Den we have so much, your life and mine are entwined into one. We'll be fine, you and me.' We can live without that sort of loving . . . but was that true? Uninvited the thought leapt into her head of the times he had mounted her as if he were serving her like an animal in the field, racing to his goal and leaving her with her body aching with longing for something so often just out of reach. Again she was in Bruce's arms, that same longing thrusting everything from her but her yearning for his love. Tonight was the first night of the rest of their lives; she loved Den, dear Den who had shared her years, Den who had fathered Jess. Moving closer, she raised herself so that she was lying on top of him, his arms around her as he held her close. Above all else she was aware that his desire hadn't retreated with her touch. She drew up her knees and moved to sit taller. His eyes were closed, his breathing quickened by fear. Please let it work for us – for both of us – but especially for Den. She guided him into her and started to move gently on him. With clenched fists he was beating a tattoo on the bed; St George couldn't have fought the dragon with more force than Den did as he battled to hang on to the libido that he knew could vanish with no warning.

She watched him, all thought of her own needs faded. Tonight belonged just to him. If he failed, then the failure would go with them into the future; if he succeeded that would be another hurdle overcome, a high and important hurdle.

And finally it was a battle won.

‘You see?' She laughed softly, moving her fingers tenderly through his tousled hair, ‘Your legs might not be in working order, but the rest of you is just the man you always were. Right?'

‘Seems so,' he answered, still gasping for breath. ‘Kathie, I was so frightened. God, but it's good to be home.'

In most homes the wives of wounded or disabled warriors would give their time to them. At Westways that wasn't possible. Sarah and Sally had learnt a lot in the year they'd been there, but Kathie contributed a full day's labour as well as organizing the work. For years she had helped; at Den's bidding she had planted seeds, thinned out the seedlings so that when the strong young plants were ready she could plant them out. Doing the work under someone else's watchful eye was a very different thing from thinking ahead, making sure nothing fell behind schedule. In the last year she'd had to learn as she went along, and she had every right to be proud of what she had achieved. On her one and only trip to see Dennis in hospital, Claudia – who in truth knew far less than either of the girls – had taken control and Bruce had been a willing delivery boy plus any other role that came his way. Now that Dennis was home, would he still wander down from the Hall in his workmen's overalls and wellington boots? Kathie knew the answer even before she asked herself the question.

‘It's a glorious morning,' she said as, after a slow and difficult descent, Den swung himself into the warm room. Normally she would have been outside an hour or more ago, but having set the girls to work she waited until she heard he was on his way down before she started to cook his breakfast.

‘I don't need breakfast. You've got work to do. If you can just put the wheelchair outside the door, I can get myself out there when I'm ready. You can't leave those girls on their own. God knows what'll happen to the place.'

‘The arrogance of the man,' she teased, trying not to let him guess the effort it took, ‘they may be the fairer sex but they aren't children. They're seventeen years old and they've worked here for a year. When Stan and Bert were that age the extension was being built and I seem to remember you made yourself labourer's assistant.'

‘Has the paper come?' he changed the subject.

‘I expect it's in the letterbox. It's always late during the school holidays,' Kathie answered at just the same moment as Beth ran in from the garden.

‘I'll get it, Aunt Kathie,' she said not slowing her pace as she ran through the room, ‘I did the chickens' water.'

‘Thanks, love.'

Dennis frowned. The easy and affectionate relationship between Kathie and her waif seemed to make a stranger of him – of him and of Jess too, as if life had gone on without either of them. Slumped at the table he wished it could do just that. What was there to live for? Day after day, year after year, and what was he? Just an encumbrance on Kathie's life.

Running back into the room Beth put the paper on the table in front of him.

‘Here it is,' she forced herself to speak and to smile, too, without him being able to guess what an effort it was. When he'd been here before, everything had been so dreadful. Often she had dreams about the accident, the scream of the breaks and then a sort of thud (which in her dreams was louder than it had been in reality) as Jess had been hit, Jess and Fudge. She would wake up in the night and find she was crying; sometimes Kathie heard her and came in, sometimes she just lay there on her own reaching to Jess's side of the bed and trying to imagine she was there. Perhaps he thought about it and was sad too; that's what she told herself as she put the paper on the table in front of him.

Without looking at it, he pushed it away. Watching the scene, Kathie felt her anger rise.

‘Beth and I have had our breakfast. I must go and see how the girls are getting on; you can help me, Beth. OK? Just leave your dirty things on the table, Den, I'll come back later and see to them.'

‘Or I can,' Beth suggested, feeling that if he saw her as part of the team he might not mind about her so much.

‘One of us will. You're sure you're all right to get outside? I've left the chair just near the door.'

‘Fine, thanks.' He managed to keep his voice steady, in fact he sounded sufficiently bright that Kathie felt no guilt in leaving him. Already he had found there were things he could manage for himself; each day would get better. Her optimism would have taken a plunge if she could have looked back at the scene in the warm room where he sat with his head in his hands, his untouched breakfast before him.

‘The weeds are getting bad at the far end, we'll have a go at them shall we?' Kathie said as she and Beth reached the tool shed where she took a hoe for herself and passed to Beth one which, while she'd been visiting Den in hospital, Bruce had fitted with a handle just the right length for her. Soon they were working together, the little girl concentrating on cutting through the new growth of weeds, then turning the hoe just as Kathie did to smooth the freshly turned soil. Before long Oliver would be here and they would go to their den on the common. What a sad and cross man Mr Hawthorne was. Of course it must be dreadful not to be able to work with the others, but it wasn't Aunt Kathie's fault; he might feel better if he made himself smile at her more.