A Nurse's Duty (50 page)

The menace represented by Dave Mitchell faded into the background as the weeks went by. Karen even allowed herself to hope that he had gone from their lives altogether.

‘Do you think he has gone?’ she asked Patrick one day. There had been a slight thaw and pale sunshine sparkled on the frosty
snow
on the roof of the barn, and in the yard below slush was threatening to become a quagmire.

Patrick didn’t need to ask who she meant, Dave was never far from his thoughts either.

‘I don’t know, Karen,’ he replied, sounding slightly impatient. What on earth was the use of supposing anything? He pulled on his high boots over his fisherman’s knit socks and struggled into his worn overcoat. Sometimes he thought it took more energy to get dressed these days than it did actually to do the work.

‘I’ll have to clear the yard before it becomes a swamp,’ he remarked to Karen, and trudged through the slush to get a shovel from the barn.

The slight thaw continued and Fred Bainbridge brought his tractor up the lonnen and cleared a track through the remaining snow. Karen invited him in for a cup of tea and a piece of lardy cake.

‘I’m sorry, there’s no butter but there’s plenty of rhubarb jam,’ she said humbly, feeling ashamed that she had no more to offer.

‘Never you mind, missus, I’m fond of a bit of rhubarb jam, I am,’ he replied. But when he had finished his lardy cake and rose to go, he paused.

‘I can let you have a bit of butter, if you like,’ he said. ‘Have both your cows dried up, like?’

Karen blushed. ‘We had to let the red cow go, Fred,’ she said. He looked hard at her but said no more. Next morning, his son arrived and handed over a pound of butter.

‘The postman’s coming down the lane,’ he said as he came in. ‘I’ll wait for him and save him a journey down to our place.’

It was the first time the post had got through for a while and Karen felt a little surge of pleasure. There was probably a letter from Morton Main, from Kezia; she could just do with reading a chatty letter, it would cheer her up.

Fred’s son walked out to meet the postman then went on his
way
, waving cheerily to Karen as he went. She pushed the kettle back on the fire so she could freshen the tea and offer the postman a cup. She hummed a little tune to herself as she went back to the door to greet him, putting out a hand for the letters which he was holding.

‘Aren’t you coming in for a cup?’ she asked as he half-turned to go. She didn’t look down at the pile of letters, she could open them later.

‘I’ll not stay, thank you, missus,’ he replied. ‘I have a lot to get out today, what with being held up by the snow an’ all. I’ll be getting on my way.’

‘Goodbye, then,’ she said and closed the door after him. She would take five minutes before the men came in from the low fell for their breakfast. Brian and Jennie were playing quietly on a clippie mat under the table, they were playing house. Sitting down in the rocking chair before the fire, she looked at the bundle of letters. Yes, the top one was from Kezia and there was one from Annie. Dear Annie. She still wrote twice or thrice a year, giving all her news of Greenfields, and Karen wrote back telling her about her own family. There was a letter from the Chapel steward about a members’ meeting and underneath there was another in a man’s hand. Dave’s hand.

Karen jumped to her feet, hardly realizing she was doing it, and the letters went skidding over the flagged floor of the kitchen, dropped from her suddenly nerveless hands. All except for one, the letter from Dave.

‘Is something the matter, Mammy?’

Brian crawled out from under the table. He had picked up the other letters and was holding them out to her. Karen didn’t hear him, she was still staring at the envelope covered with Dave’s crabbed handwriting.

‘Mammy?’

Karen looked down at her son. After a moment she took the
letters
from him and put them on the table. Slowly she sat down again and opened the envelope.

Just to let you know I’ll be up to see you on the thirteenth. I’ll expect you to have a little present for me when I get there. D.

The thirteenth, that was tomorrow. How was she supposed to get any money together by tomorrow? How was she supposed to get any money together at all? Patrick had no pay from the road making, the weather had been too bad. And there was nothing else to sell. All they had was the stock and how could they sell that? They wouldn’t be able to live at all if they did.

‘Mammy, I’m hungry,’ Jennie said plaintively. With a start, Karen glanced up at the bare patch on the wall. She just couldn’t get out of the habit of looking for the clock. There was no other clock in the house but she realized it must be nearing noon; it was past time she had the dinner ready. Fortunately, she had a pan of mutton stew all ready to warm up. She raked the glowing coals to the middle of the fire and added lumps of peat to the sides. Soon she was able to place the pan on the coals to heat up the stew.

‘Go and call in Daddy and Nick,’ she told Brian, and he obediently went out to the barn.

I won’t say anything to Patrick, she decided. Not yet, not until I have to. Patrick intends to be out tomorrow, he is fetching lime to spread on the near fell. I’ll just have to tell Dave I can’t give him any more money, and he can do what he likes. We have to make a stand.

Chapter Thirty-Two

DAVE CROUCHED DOWN
in the shepherd’s hut high on the moor above Low Rigg Farm. He shivered and shook with the cold. There was a makeshift fireplace in one corner but he daren’t light a fire in the daylight for fear someone saw the smoke. The night before he had had to; he would have frozen to death else. He thought of the warm kitchen down on the farm. There would be hot food there an’ all. And Karen, by, she was a corker when she was angry. Fair gave a man ideas.

He smiled as he thought of the note he had sent the day before yesterday. That would have shaken them up a bit down there. It had just been a joke really, he’d had much richer pickings in mind, him and his mate Jacko. They had been watching a house in Jesmond, a posh house in a posh area. And the best thing was the house belonged to a jeweller, a good jeweller an’ all, with a shop in Northumberland Street. He was bound to have plenty of money stashed away in that house, not to mention other things, Jacko had said. So what did he want with the few coppers that poverty-stricken bitch he was married to could scrape together? No, it had just been a joke at the time.

Dave blew on his hands. God, he thought, he’d have frostbite before long if he didn’t make a move. A hell of a joke, he told himself savagely, it was all in earnest now. Karen represented the only way out he had left. No one would think of looking for him on these Godforsaken fells. No one in their right mind would be here in this weather.

Everything had gone wrong, everything that could happen did. The jeweller had come home and changed into his evening suit,
as
he had done last Friday and the Friday before that, and the chauffeur had brought the Rolls round to the front door for him as he did every Friday evening and the jeweller had gone out.

That was their chance, said Jacko when they were planning it all. The staff were all in the back of the house having their own bit of a do and they could get in the front, up the ivy, and in at the bedroom window, for the house was hidden from the road by trees.

I might have known it would all go wrong, Dave thought grimly. He’d got up the ivy all right and had the bedroom window open in no time. A case of practice makes perfect. But Jacko, the bloody fool, had slipped and done something to his leg and the butler had come out to see what the noise was and there was such a commotion as he’d never heard in his life. Of course, he’d come down the ivy a bit sharpish, like, and the old feller had set up such a hollering and screaming he’d had to bash him with his jemmy before he could get away on his bike.

And here he was on this bloody awful fell, frozen half to death, and wherever Jacko was it served him bloody well right, that’s all.

Funny about that note he’d sent Karen, though. Dave even smiled as he thought of it. Maybe she had managed to scrape something together, he’d just away down there and see. Best leave the bike hidden away in here, though, the polis would likely be looking for a man on a motor bike. He’d take it careful, creep down the fell and across the road and down the lonnen. It wasn’t more than a couple of miles.

‘By, you look grand today, lass.’

Karen started and the cup she had been drying fell from her hands with a crash but she didn’t even notice. She was watching Dave as he walked past her into the kitchen and over to the fire. She followed him as he held out his hands to the blaze, watching him as he stripped off his top coat and muffler and dropped them on the floor before leaning forward to the heat.

‘Bloody hell, that hurts,’ he said, wincing as it reached his frozen hands and the blood began to return to them. Steam began to rise from him and a rank, sour smell started to fill the room. He wasn’t usually so scruffy, she thought dully. He looked like Nick had done when he had been sleeping out on the fell. Bits of dried bracken were stuck to his trousers and sheep droppings had fallen from him all over her clean floor.

‘What do you want?’ Karen asked at last. ‘Whatever it is, you won’t find it here. We have nothing, Dave, you’ve seen to that. We’ll be lucky to last out the winter.’

He turned and faced her. ‘Nay, lass,’ he said, ‘I only want a place to stay for a few days. For the minute, anyroad. I need food and a bed, that’s what I need. And who else would I come to but my lawful wedded wife?’

‘You’re not staying here!’ she cried. ‘Get out, get away from us. Leave us alone, I’m telling you.’

‘Oh, but I am staying here,’ he said softly. He sniffed, leaning towards the oven where Karen had a dish of panhacklety cooking for the midday dinner.

‘Mind, that smells great,’ he went on, opening the oven door and peering in at the bacon and onions and potatoes bubbling in the pot. ‘Ready to eat, is it?’

‘I told you, you’re not staying here, neither are you eating our dinner. Get out, I said, and I meant it. I’m not giving in to you any more, do what you like.’

Dave smiled and Karen’s hatred intensified. She felt like clawing the smirk from his face. Her hands clenched at her sides and the nails dug into her palms as she imagined them digging into his eyes.

‘Don’t talk daft, Karen,’ he said easily, and walked over to the stone jar on the dresser and took out a heel of bread. He took it to the still open oven and dipped it in the gravy, pulling a lump of bacon on to it. Turning again, he grinned at her.

‘I’ll just have this to be going on with,’ he said, and bit hugely into the bread. As gravy and bacon fat ran down his chin he wiped it away with the back of his hand and licked his hand with his tongue.

‘An’ very nice it is, an’ all,’ he pronounced judiciously.

A low growl from the doorway made him turn and he paused in his wolfing of the food.

‘Keep that loony away from me, Karen,’ he snarled. ‘And see the hay gripe’s locked away an’ all.’

She moved swiftly to Nick’s side. She’d thought she’d made sure he would be working away from the house and yard. Oh, she hadn’t wanted him to see Dave. She put a restraining hand on his arm.

‘It’s all right, Nick, howay outside. There’s work to be done in the barn.’

But he stood unmoving, glaring at Dave. Suddenly he lunged across the room, his one fist bunched ready to strike and his stump flailing wildly.

‘Nick!’ screamed Karen, but Dave laughed derisively. With one blow he knocked Nick across the room to bang sickeningly against the wall. In two strides, Dave was there beside him, kicking him as he lay.

‘Go for me, would you?’ he snarled. ‘Howay then, get up, have another go. It’s not the same without a hay gripe in your hand, is it, though?’

Karen flung herself on Nick, protecting him from Dave’s cruel boots, taking a kick on her own shoulder as she did so.

‘Leave him alone, don’t touch him!’ she shouted, and Dave stood back, rubbing his knuckles.

‘Aw, he’s not worth it, the crazy sod,’ he laughed.

‘Get out, go on, get out! You could have murdered the lad.’

‘Aye,’ said Dave equably. The fight seemed to have improved his mood. ‘If I’d had me jemmy, I might have done an’ all.’ He
walked
over to where his top coat lay in a heap on the floor, picked it up and put it on. Casually, he wandered into the pantry and looked around.

‘Mind, lass, you weren’t joking when you said you had nowt. A bit of cheese and a couple of pig’s trotters, is that all you have in the house? Aye, well, they’ll have to do.’

He took the tea towel from the brass rail and wrapped the food in it while Karen watched him helplessly.

‘Right, I’m off,’ he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was going before Patrick got back with the children.

‘And don’t come back or I’m telling you, I’ll lay you in with the bobbies.’

‘Will you, then?’ Dave’s face darkened as he moved towards her and Karen cursed her unbridled tongue.

Dave laughed as she shrank back towards Nick who groaned and moved suddenly.

‘There you are, he’s all right. It’d take more than a few kicks to dent that thick head.’

Karen fell on to her knees beside Nick and lifted his head. There was an ugly gash on his temple where he had fallen against the wall and his lip was swollen and bruised. But he was coming round. He moaned now and struggled to sit up.

‘Come on, lad, I’ll help you,’ she whispered to him. Putting her arms around him, she helped him to his feet and on to the settee in the corner. He sat there, feeling his head gingerly.

‘I’ll get some water and bathe it,’ said Karen. ‘Lie down now, Nick, do.’ She was worried sick as she saw his face so white and strained and the twitch disfiguring it horribly. Vaguely she realized that Dave had gone but it was attending to Nick which was most important now. Had he fractured his skull? In any case, he needed a doctor.

She brought water from the pail in the scullery and took it into the kitchen to add hot from the kettle. And Nick rushed past her
and
was gone out of the open door and away up the fell, running as if the hounds of hell were after him.