A Nurse's Duty (54 page)

‘You’re doing nothing of the kind,’ he said now calmly, not raising his voice at all. ‘Your work is here, looking after the children.’

‘We need the money, Patrick.’

He pushed back his chair and stalked to the door before turning back to her.

‘You can put the idea out of your head, Karen. I’m telling you so and you can just make up your mind to it. Now, I’m going out to the sheep, I’ll be back at dinnertime.’

Karen watched him go through the scullery window, his tall figure passing out through the gate and round the path by the rowan tree to the sheep fold, and her face was set. He could say what he liked, she thought. If she once had a job and was bringing in a little each week, he would realise that it was for the best.

Turning back to the children, she said, ‘Come on, Jennie, I’ll wash your face. We’re going to take Brian to school and then we’re going to see Granda.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

KAREN TRAVELLED TO
Bishop Auckland on the bus. It was cheaper than the train though the journey was longer. The basket of eggs she had at first intended to give to Kezia, she managed to sell to a small grocery store in Stanhope. She regretted having nothing to take for her sister but she needed the one and sixpence she was paid for the eggs for fares.

Bishop Auckland marketplace was quiet for all it was eleven in the morning. There were few customers about. She took Jennie’s hand and crossed over to the bus for Morton Main, stepping round piles of dirty, melting snow and lifting the little girl high over puddles, making a game of it. Karen’s own feet were wet and cold even crossing the few yards between the buses for the soles of her boots were well past the time they should have gone to the cobblers to be renewed.

The bus was empty but for the driver and conductor; evidently no one wanted to go out to the villages.

‘Nice break in the weather,’ commented the conductor as he took her penny ha’penny and gave Jennie the ticket. Karen nodded agreement.

‘You’re not very busy today,’ she observed, for something to say.

‘Aye, well, it’s Tuesday. Things are different on Thursdays when the market’s going. Not much like, not now half the pits are idle or working part-time.’

As they wended their way round the small pit villages, most of them with the winding gear in the pit yards still and quiet and the coke ovens cold, Karen was struck with guilt. She hadn’t realized
just
how bad things were, she had been so full of her own problems. She hadn’t even brought the eggs. Perhaps she could have done with only selling half of them, then she would have had some to give to Kezia who surely must need it judging by the poverty she saw all around. Everything and everybody, from the apathetic children playing in the streets to the men sitting on their hunkers on the corners, watching idly as the bus went by, told the same story. No work, no money. And Morton Main was no different, she noted as the bus drove up to Chapel Row. Except that the pit wheel was turning. At least Morton Main colliery was working.

‘Luke’s at work, thank the Lord. Three-day week but better than nothing,’ said Kezia after the sisters had greeted each other and Kezia had exclaimed at how fast Jennie was growing. Her own children were in school. ‘There’s no work for young Luke though.’ She sighed and lowered her voice. ‘He’s talking about going away, tramping round the country looking for work. Some of his friends are going and I’m worried to death. Don’t say anything to Da though. He’s not well.’

Da was sitting hunched over the fire and Karen was shocked by his appearance. He seemed to have sunk in on himself somehow, his broad shoulders shrivelled and his face grey and lined. His mouth hung permanently open with the effort of drawing breath. It was miner’s lung, Karen recognized his disease immediately. Poor man, she thought, even as she smiled and went forward to kiss him on the cheek.

‘Hallo, Da,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ve brought Jennie to see you.’ ‘By, it’s grand to see you both an’ all,’ he said, his words breathy and laboured through the mucus which bubbled up into his throat. ‘But mebbe you should have waited till the weather got a bit warmer before venturing all this way.’

‘We came on the bus, Da, it was no trouble,’ replied Karen. She watched him covertly as Kezia filled the kettle for tea and buttered
lardy
cakes. There was an air of defeat about him even worse than the last time she had seen him and her heart ached. It was Jennie who brought a little life back to his eyes. She went up to him and laid her hand on his arm.

‘Granda, are we going to Lizzie’s shop for a sherbet dab?’ she asked.

‘Jennie! I’ve told you it’s rude to ask for things. And Granda hasn’t got the money to spare to buy sherbet dabs,’ Karen admonished. But he was fishing in his waistcoat pocket with two fingers. Bringing out a penny, he held it up.

‘Nay, lass,’ he said. ‘The day hasn’t come yet when I couldn’t buy my grandbairns a bit of a treat.’

‘That’s his baccy money,’ said Kezia after he and Jennie went off hand in hand to the shop. ‘He’ll do without his smoke now until pension day, but don’t let on I told you.’

Karen drank her tea, oversweet because it had condensed milk in it as it was cheaper than fresh. The sisters chatted about this and that and then Karen came to her main reason for coming to Morton Main.

‘Is Robert Richardson still the doctor?’

Kezia looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, he is. And a godsend he is an’ all. He’s grand with the bairns, never grumbles when he’s called out during the night. Not like that last doctor we had. Do you remember when he told Mam to go to the West Coast for a holiday? No idea, that man, no idea at all what it was like for pit folk, even though he lived among them. Now Doctor Richardson – well, let’s just say Africa’s loss was our gain.’

‘Would you mind if I just slipped along to see him? I mean, give an eye to Jennie for me, I won’t be long.’

‘There’s nothing the matter, is there?’ Kezia looked keenly at her.

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ said Karen. ‘I’ll tell you later. I thought I might catch him still in his surgery just now.’

As she had judged, Robert was still in his surgery. There was only one patient left to go to him and Jimmy the dispenser was busy filling up bottles of ‘tonic’ from a large demi-john in his tiny cubicle off the waiting room. He poked his head round the door and surveyed Karen.

‘You’re a bit late for surgery, aren’t you?’ he asked testily. ‘Mebbe you’d better come back at six the night. The doctor’s got enough on now, it’s time he was out on his rounds.’

‘I’m not here as a patient,’ she said.

The dispenser came fully out of his cubicle, medicine bottle in one hand and funnel in the other. ‘Then what …’ he began when the surgery door opened and the patient came out, followed closely by Robert.

‘Jimmy,’ he began to say when he saw Karen and abruptly stopped speaking.

‘Hallo, Robert.’

The words fell into a small silence broken only by the ring of the patient’s hob-nailed boots as he walked out of the waiting room and down the yard.

Jimmy looked curiously from her to Robert who was standing perfectly still, his face expressionless. ‘I’ve got the list for the rounds,’ the dispenser said.

Robert moved then, standing aside to usher Karen into the consulting room. ‘Just hold on to it for the moment, please, Jimmy,’ he said and Karen walked in front of him. He closed the door behind them both. ‘Sit down,’ he commanded and she took the chair placed by his desk for patients and he sat down at his desk.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked formally.

‘Nothing … I mean, I’m not here to consult you professionally.’

‘Then why are you here?’

Karen stared at his handsome face, noting the slight lines round
his
mouth and on his brow. His hair was grey at the temples, the once clear-cut line of his jaw softened. Robert looked his age and more, she thought abstractedly. How old was he? Forty? He lifted an eyebrow, waiting for her to answer and she pulled her thoughts together.

‘How are you, Robert? Kezia has told me how good you are to the folk here, how everyone likes you –’

He sat forward in his chair with a look of impatience. ‘I’m sure you haven’t come here to make small talk, Karen.’

‘No. No, you’re right. I have to ask you a favour.’

She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. He sounded so bitter. Which of course he had every right to be, she told herself. But somehow, she hadn’t thought of that. Oh, she had known she had hurt him but she had tried to explain when she wrote to him. He hadn’t replied to her letter, she remembered now. But it was so long ago, seven years, surely he had got over her by now?

‘A favour.’

‘Yes. I want to nurse in Stanhope, maybe become a district nurse. But I need a reference and I thought –’

‘You thought, there’s Robert, good old Robert. He’ll do anything for me. All I have to do is beckon and he’ll come running. Even after seven years.’

‘Robert! No, it’s not like that, not at all.’

‘Isn’t it?’ He rose to his feet and turned to look out of the window, his fists clenched at his sides. ‘And what about the great Irish lover? Can he not support you and your children now? Or have you grown tired of him? After all, seven years is a long time with one man.’

Karen was on her feet now, shaken and angry that he should talk to her as he was doing. ‘How can you say that, Robert!’ She walked round the desk until she was before him, looking up at his face which was suffused with rage.

‘I can say it, Karen. Oh, yes, I can say it. Did you think you could do what you liked with me and I would take it, like a puppy dog? I was going to marry you, Karen, even though you were carrying another man’s child. You agreed, then when the priest came looking for you, you went to him without a thought for me or my feelings. You acted like a whore. In fact, you are worse than a prostitute. You use men. You used me.’

Karen couldn’t believe what he was saying. She lifted a hand and caught hold of his arm. ‘Robert, Robert, I’m sorry I hurt you, I really am. I didn’t mean to, really I didn’t. Please, Robert, forgive me. It was a bad time for me what with the baby coming.’

‘So you thought, well, there’s good old Robert, he’ll look after me.’

‘I didn’t! I never meant … I didn’t know Patrick …’

‘Was coming back to you? Well, I knew I was second best but I didn’t expect to be thrown over when I wasn’t needed any more.’

‘Forgive me, please forgive me,’ she pleaded, clutching his arm.

He shook himself free and stepped back from her. ‘There you go. You think all you have to do is look at me with those great, brown eyes and –’ He broke off what he was saying as a knock came on the door. For a moment he stood there, his mouth working, and the knock came again.

‘Yes? What is it?’ Robert said at last.

‘It’s Jimmy. Is everything all right, Doctor? Only there’s a long list for your round this morning and it’s nearly dinner-time.’

‘Yes, all right, I’m coming. I’ve finished here.’

Robert turned to the desk, taking no further notice of Karen. He picked up his black bag and put in his stethoscope and snapped it briskly shut.

‘I’m sorry I bothered you, I’ll go now,’ said Karen. He lifted his head and stared at the wall above her head. She walked to the door, holding on to her dignity as far as she was able. She paused with her hand on the doorknob.

‘Goodbye, Robert,’ she said and opened the door and walked past the dispenser who was watching her curiously. She went out of the waiting room and down the yard where the men usually waited their turn during surgery hours, squatting on their hunkers and drawing deeply on their cigarettes. Thank goodness there was no one there now, she thought. Going along to Chapel Row, her cheeks were aflame with mortification though when she got into the house and Kezia commented on her high colour, she blamed it on the wind.

‘Still a wild north-easter blowing out there,’ she said. At least she had not much time to spare before starting on her journey home, not if she was to be back before Brian.

On the bus going back up the dale, she sat slumped in her seat not listening to Jennie’s chatter, and in the end the little girl dropped off to sleep with the motion from the bus and Karen had to half carry her to the butchers for something for tea and then to the connecting bus going up the moor, Jennie fretful and crying. Karen was filled with misery and self-loathing. Robert was right, she thought, all the men in her life had turned away from her and it had to be something in her, not them. She would never understand men, never.

Except for Joe, her brother. Suddenly she missed him as acutely as she had done the first time he had gone to Australia. She could talk to Joe, she told herself as she built up the fire and put the kettle on to boil and bathed the children and put them to bed. But Joe had a life of his own in Australia, he was married now and according to his last letter doing very well for himself. It was silly to yearn for Joe, she was unlikely to see him again.

Nick came in and she made supper for him, boiled cow’s heel she had bought in Stanhope between buses, but she couldn’t eat herself. The lardy cake she had eaten at Kezia’s that morning still lay heavy on her stomach, making her feel queasy. Nick was quiet, eating his meal and going out to the barn again soon after for there
were
two sickly lambs to nurse. There was no sign of Patrick until much later in the evening. He came in once again smelling of whiskey and the smell made her gag so that she rushed out into the yard without speaking to him.

Leaning against the wall of the house, she drew in great gulps of air, trying to force her system back to normal through strength of will alone. After a while the cold seeped through her body and she had to go back inside.

Patrick was sitting by the fire undoing his boots. He glanced up at her and said, ‘Don’t start now.’

Karen bit her lip. She was weary to death, she couldn’t have started an argument now if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to, she just wanted to go to bed and curl up into a ball and drop into unconsciousness and sleep for a week.