A Nurse's Duty (53 page)

Patrick looked hurt. ‘I would have offered but I thought we didn’t have the money,’ he said mildly. ‘Leave the bread, there’s half a loaf left and some porridge oats, we’ll manage till tomorrow. I’ll go down first thing, how’s that? I can’t go today, I promised Fred Bainbridge I’d help him mend the boundary fence.’

Karen stared down at the packet of baking powder in her hand, then she took it back to the pantry. Coming back into the kitchen she saw Patrick was lacing his boots, ready to go out.

‘It’s no good, Patrick, we’ll have to get money from somewhere,’ she said flatly.

‘But where? You know there’s no work on the road this weather.’

‘I can work. I could get work down at the hospital.’

Patrick finished tying his boots and rose to his feet, his face hard and unsmiling. ‘You will not,’ he said and walked out of the house before she had a chance to argue. Karen stared after him, regretting the way she had spoken to him earlier. It wasn’t his fault there was no work, she reminded herself. And it wasn’t his fault Dave had come back and taken their meagre savings. She had hurt him, she knew. Oh, why couldn’t she guard her tongue? Sighing, she went out into the yard and along to the hen house. The hens were to feed whether they laid or not. And at least things could only improve with the coming of spring.

Chapter Thirty-Five

NEXT MORNING, PATRICK
was withdrawn and quiet. Soon after breakfast he went into the yard and saddled Polly. Karen followed him.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

Patrick climbed on to the pony before replying. ‘You wanted some yeast, didn’t you? Well, that’s where I’m going.’

‘Patrick, about me going back to nursing –’

‘No.’

He turned the pony and headed out of the gate. Karen watched him go in silence. The day was fine and the icy tang had gone from the wind. Behind her, water dripped from the roof of the house and as Polly trotted along she was kicking up clumps of mud. Patrick would be back at midday for something to eat, Karen told herself. As she went back into the house she remembered he hadn’t even said goodbye. In the kennel by the back door, Floss whimpered, miserable because he had gone without her.

‘Never mind, Floss,’ she said. ‘I know how you feel.’

Was he just going for the yeast or was he going to Wolsingham? Wolsingham loomed large and frightening in her mind. It was where the Catholic Church was, and priests and nuns and maybe Sean …

Karen got through the day going from one job to another. She fed the hens and collected the eggs. They had responded to the break in the weather and there were a few more eggs, God be praised. She helped Nick with the sheep and the lambs in the home fold. She comforted Floss, still in despair at being left behind by Patrick. She fed the children and Nick when it was dinnertime and
Patrick
did not come home. Her actions became mechanical, her mind on Patrick. She was waiting minute by minute for him to come home; her ears ached with the strain of listening for him above the chatter of the children.

The afternoon continued warm and Brian and Jennie played outside while she worked, Brian keeping an eye on his sister. They came running up to her and showed her where the crocuses were poking up above the slushy flower beds, purple and gold. Birds began to sing above their heads and at the bottom of the garden two robins pecked at each other furiously until one gave in and flew away. The victor preened himself busily and poked in the mud for worms.

The sick feeling in Karen’s stomach intensified and she realized it was already teatime and there was no sign of Patrick. She boiled eggs for the children and Nick and cut up the last of the loaf. When Patrick did come home she would have to begin baking at once if they were to have bread for tomorrow. In any case, she ought to make some of the despised soda scones for supper. She brought the makings from the pantry and began, trying to think of nothing but the task in hand.

It was half-past six when the clip-clop of hooves was heard in the yard. Karen was bathing the children in the tin bath before the fire in the kitchen. She had lifted Jennie out and was drying her on her lap but her hands stilled as she caught the first faint sound of the horse coming through the gate and she gazed up at the doorway to the scullery, though she told herself Patrick couldn’t possibly appear there yet.

‘Look at me, Mammy.’

Brian was sitting in the bath making bubbles with his hands and squeezing the slippery soap until it shot out against the side of the bath with a satisfying thud. Jennie began to cry, competing for her mother’s attention, and automatically Karen wrapped the towel round her and cuddled her and Jennie quietened.

Then Patrick was there, filling the doorway and looking across the room at her, swaying a little on his feet. Even across the room, Karen could smell the whiskey on his breath. Where had he got the money for whiskey? He had only twopence for the yeast when he went out.

Her attention was distracted when Brian stood up in the water with the soap clutched in his hands and a wide grin splitting his face.

‘Daddy! Daddy, look,’ he shouted, and squeezed the soap. It flew across the room to whack Patrick on the chest and bounce to the floor where it slid under the table, leaving a slippery trail.

‘Brian!’ snapped Karen and the boy’s lower lip stuck out, quivering. ‘Now don’t start crying. Here, take the towel and dry yourself.’ She pulled a towel from the brass line underneath the mantel shelf and gave it to him.

‘Never mind, son,’ said Patrick, his words slurring into each other.

‘I’ll get it for you.’ He squatted down on his hunkers and reached under the table for the soap and promptly fell over, sprawling on the floor. Brian stared, forgetting his feelings were hurt.

‘Come on, Brian,’ said Karen. ‘I want you dry and in your nightshirt and up the stairs in five minutes, do you hear me?’

‘There’s no clock, how can I tell when it’s five minutes?’ asked Brian. But he stepped out of the bath after glancing at his mother’s set face and hurriedly dried himself and pulled on his nightshirt. Patrick had raised himself to his hands and knees and was crawling backwards from under the table. He got to his feet, his face red with the exertion, and sat down heavily on the settee. He and Karen still had not exchanged a word.

She took the children off to bed and hurried them through their prayers then came down and began clearing away. She emptied the bath water and hung the bath up on the scullery wall and put
the
towels over the rail to dry. Patrick was sitting watching her sombrely and she realized he was not so drunk as not to know what was going on.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Have you got the yeast? A fine time of the day this is to have to start baking bread.’ She turned away from him, biting her lip, knowing she sounded shrewish but unable to help herself. Oh, why couldn’t they be happy now that the biggest threat had gone from their lives?

‘I forgot to get the yeast,’ he admitted.

Karen whirled on him. ‘You forgot? How could you forget?’

‘I’ve been working, a day’s casual at the station. If I hadn’t gone as soon as I heard I would have missed it,’ he defended himself. ‘I’m sorry about the yeast, Karen, but I’ll go back tomorrow, we’ll have soda bread till then.’

‘The carrier will be here tomorrow, there’ll be no excuse for you going down the pub again,’ she said. ‘Well, let’s see the money you earned today, there’s nothing else to pay the carrier.’

Patrick fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and brought out five pennies and placed them carefully on the table. He looked at them for a moment and then searched through the rest of his pockets. In his trousers he found a halfpenny and solemnly added it to the pennies.

‘Is that all?’ asked Karen. She stared at the coppers, despair making her voice harsh. ‘You must have some more, how much did they pay you?’

‘I had to have a bite of dinner, didn’t I?’

‘A bite of dinner? A bite of dinner? You’ve been in the Moor Hen, that’s where you’ve been, supping whiskey, do you think I can’t smell it on you? You’re drunk, man, and me without a shilling to buy in supplies. Patrick, Patrick, how could you do it?’

‘Shut your mouth, woman!’ Rising to his feet he glared at her. ‘Sit down and shut up.’

Karen stood her ground. Angry tears started to her eyes and she
brushed
them away impatiently. ‘I won’t shut up, why should I? What’s the matter with you, Patrick? Just when we have a chance to start again after all the trouble, you go off drinking. By, it’s a good job Gran isn’t here to see you coming in drunk, I can tell you. When I think –’

Whatever Karen was going to say she thought was knocked out of her head as Patrick lifted his hand to her and slapped her so hard she fell across the table and the jug of water toppled on to its side and the water ran off on to the flags beneath. She lay there for a few seconds, half on and half off the table, more stunned by the fact that he had hit her than by the actual blow, before sinking on a chair. Unbelieving, she put a hand up to her face which was still stinging from the slap. She moved the hand round to the side of her head where it had hit the water jug and felt the bump rising under her hair. And then she looked up at Patrick and they stared at each other as though they were strangers.

‘Maybe that will shut you up,’ he said. ‘It’s about time I showed you who’s master in this house.’

Karen watched, in something of a daze, as he walked out of the room to the stairs, stumbling only once against the door frame. After a moment she rose and looked critically in the over-mantel mirror. Her face was red down the left side but she thought it wouldn’t bruise. She let her hair down and brushed it to that side, wincing as the bristles caught the bump on her head. Then she sat down in the rocking chair, laid her head back on the cushion and closed her eyes.

‘Are you all right, missus?’

Nick’s voice startled Karen and she jumped to her feet, feeling dizzy. He was standing right next to her and he put out his good hand to steady her. ‘Eeh, I’m sorry, missus, I didn’t mean –’

‘It’s nothing, I was just dreaming. I couldn’t think who it was for a minute,’ she said, putting a hand up to her face. But Nick
didn’t
notice, he was looking at the water on the floor and the turned over jug on the table.

‘Something knocked the jug over?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I did, I was going to wipe it up …’ She picked it up and went into the scullery and refilled it from the pail. ‘I’ll just wipe up the mess and then I’ll make your cocoa.’

‘Patrick gone to bed then?’

Her hand stilled momentarily as she reached for the floor cloth. ‘Yes. Yes, he has. He was tired, he’s had a day’s labouring in Stanhope.’

‘What’s that mark on your face?’ Nick asked suddenly.

‘Nothing, it’s nothing. I … I started to clean up before but I banged my face on the side of the table.’

She mopped up the water and made him a cup of cocoa, holding her head down and allowing her hair to fall forward and shield her face. But Nick had accepted her explanation and said no more. When he had drunk his cocoa he too went to bed.

Karen sat for a while before the fire, trying to sort out her chaotic thoughts, not wanting to go up to the bedroom and get into the bed she shared with Patrick. But weariness overcame her and she drifted off into sleep, heavy and dreamless.

It was the cold which woke her. The fire had dropped down to a white ash, and the lamp had gone out. The air in the kitchen was icy and she was shivering uncontrollably. She reached up to the mantel shelf and felt for the candlestick and matches. Soon the small flame lit up the blackness and she crept upstairs.

Patrick was asleep, lying on his back in the middle of the bed, snoring gently. There was still a smell of whiskey about him, hanging stale and sickly on the air. Karen undressed and pulled on her flannel nightgown, snuffing the candle before climbing in beside him, careful not to touch him with her cold flesh, hoping she would not disturb him. She couldn’t bear to talk to him, not yet, not until the morning at least. He grunted and turned over on
his
side away from her and she held her breath but after a few seconds his rhythmic breathing recommenced. Gradually, her shaking limbs stilled and the warmth of the bed crept through her. She lay quietly, her mind going over the events of the evening.

No man had ever slapped her before, not even Dave at his nastiest, not even her father. Oh, Da had kept a leather strap with two tails in the kitchen drawer all through her childhood and that of her sisters and brother. But she couldn’t remember that he had ever used it, not even on Joe at his naughtiest.

Of course, it was the drink that made Patrick do it, she told herself, and was reminded of the sermons she had heard her father preach about the evils of the demon drink. But that didn’t make it any easier to bear, oh no, it didn’t. But Patrick drank because he felt trapped into poverty, that was it. If they had just a little more money he wouldn’t need the whiskey, he would be happy with her and the bairns, they could get back to the way they had been in the years before Dave came back.

I could work, she thought. I am a trained nurse, I could get work in Stanhope. I could even be a district nurse, the dale could do with its own district nurse. Then we wouldn’t be dependent on Patrick getting work on the roads or burning lime. He’s not fit for such hard labour, that’s the trouble. I will see about it tomorrow, I will.

‘I’m going down to Stanhope to see about getting some nursing work,’ Karen said at breakfast. They were sitting round the table eating soda bread spread with a thin smear of butter and a good dollop of treacle.

She had waited until Nick went out to see to the hens before saying it. Patrick sat opposite her, steadily eating and Jennie was licking the treacle off her bread. Brian gazed at her over his cup, looking worried.

‘What about us? Who’ll make our tea?’ he asked.

Karen smiled. ‘Don’t worry, pet, you’ll still get your tea.’

Patrick put down his piece of bread and looked fully at her for the first time that morning. He had already been gone when she woke, and when he came in for the meal with Nick he had said nothing to her.