Between Friends (85 page)

Put away!
Put away!
Tom, Tom the boy she had loved, the man she had loved and cared for … put away!

The doctor apologised hastily for his unthinking choice of words, saying he had not meant it as it sounded but if Mrs Fraser had seen as many men as he had in the same condition as her husband she would understand the strain, and anger, he felt. As Tom drifted restlessly into the deep sleep of the strong sedative, and Beth hiccoughed her childish bewilderment on her mother’s knee before the nursery fire, Megan prepared herself for the process of killing her love for Martin Hunter.

It was hard. Night after night, as Tom slept fitfully against her back she slipped from their bed and going down to the sitting-room, stirred the dying fire to life and huddled before it with only Beth’s puppy for company. The hotel had finally been closed since it was now the approach of the season for winter blizzards up in the Peak district of Derbyshire, and the roads around Buxton could be impassable for weeks at a time.

It was quiet in the dead of night and amidst the turbulence of her heart and mind and stomach, that quiet lapped around her. She knew she was in a state of shock, her own blank-eyed image in the mirror told her so. She existed in a pit of weariness on a level which allowed her to function as the mother, the comforter, the giver of orders, raw, hurting, blind but not deaf to the voices which begged her for direction. She had got through it. Tom was calm, frail but calm, deep still in the grip of sedatives. The child had been soothed and reassured that Daddy’s ‘headache’ had gone, her trust in him restored, her childish fear overcome and the disaster, for that was what it had been, averted, and now she must put it all together, the shattered pieces of Tom’s world, hedge it around with the only surety of permanence she possessed. Herself!
Meg
Hughes, his wife, and with Beth, the one lasting quality in his fragile life.

‘God in Heaven, woman, what the hell’s the matter with you? You’re looking at me as though I was a dog turd beneath your feet. What the devil are you screaming about? Jesus Christ, anyone would think I had told the child who her real father was, and could anyone blame me if I did … My God, all I did was greet my daughter.’

‘
Will you stop calling her your daughter
!’

‘Ten bloody minutes. Ten bloody minutes! I said nothing to upset her, or her nursemaid. In fact we spoke about her Daddy, for Christ’s sake, though it was ashes in my mouth to say it.’

‘Just the fact that you spoke to her at all shattered him. He does not connect you with the Martin he knew as a boy. Though he recognises the name you are just the enemy threatening his child almost in her own home. He’s afraid of … of anything which …’

‘And that’s another thing, lady! Can you not see what that is doing to her. Oh not yet perhaps since she’s still little more than a baby, but as she gets older. Jesus, she’s longing to ride that pony of hers! She’s not afraid and yet he’s transferring
his
fears to
her
. He’ll have her locked away in the same prison he’s in and you’re letting him do it! I was astounded to see her down in that gorge, I can tell you but I didn’t arrange it, Meggie …’

His voice had become softer, not pleading, but asking for her understanding, her fair-minded recognition of the truth. ‘I was walking but when I saw her coming down the path with the puppy I couldn’t just turn away. There she was, bright and …’ He smiled in remembrance, his face warm and Meg felt the lump in her chest swell and throb and threaten to choke her, and the dry-eyed pain deep in her skull stabbed further into her tortured brain.

‘Don’t blame me, Meggie. She’s a grand kid. She reminds me of you when I first saw you. You weren’t much older than she is now but you were the bravest little beggar I had ever seen. I was only eight years old but I could recognise spunk when I saw it. Some other girl was … I don’t remember now … getting at you about something and you were ready to cry but …’

‘Stop it, stop it, I won’t have it! I won’t let you do this to us. To
her
! To Tom! Don’t you see, Martin, what we have, this … this between you and I, must
lead
somewhere or it will stagnate, but there is nowhere for it to go! You want it to move to
its
natural conclusion, as all relationships do, to a permanent commitment, marriage, family … but
ours
cannot! I am married to Tom. I have a child, a commitment already, to both of them. I cannot give you what you want, what you need. I thought I could. I thought, in my naivety, that you and I could share something,
have
something which would be enough for us both but it is just not possible. I was fooling myself – I suppose in my heart I knew it – that we would be satisfied if we could be together even for just part of our lives. It was better than nothing. We … I thought we would never … have anything … that you were gone forever but you came back and in my joy I allowed it … allowed you and I to … take the chance but it is not enough, for either of us. Are you willing to go on like this, living alone, sharing your life with someone who can spare but an hour or two from her own now and again? Watching Beth grow up … from a distance … waiting, hoping …
for what
? Tom is a young man, healthy now in his body and would you really want him to
die
so that you and I can be together because that is what it would take.
Tom’s death
! This will destroy us in the end, Martin. You know it will. You will come to resent … my responsibilities … to demand more and I will not be able to give it to you … so … you will find someone who can. You are a strong man, strong willed, you need … your own …’

She could not go on. Her killing rage had gone, drained away by the truth she had seen in his eyes and heard in his voice and Martin felt his own angry resentment slip from his taut body. He had not deliberately set out to waylay Beth and her nurse. His natural pride and concern for his daughter had put words in his mouth when he spoke to her which he had not, at the time, considered in any way to be harmful to Tom. He really did not know – no-one did, he supposed, except Meg and the doctor who cared for him – of Tom’s true state of mind and he had no idea of the effect his meeting with his daughter would have on Tom, nor the terror which had apparently sent him back to relive those events in France which had destroyed him. Martin had been overjoyed to see the child and quite simply had gone to her as naturally as any creature will gravitate to its own young. He had wanted – longed – to ask her about the puppy he had sent her, to see her eyes light up and her small face glow, not in gratitude, but with that particular excitement which all children share when
there
are presents to be opened. He had merely wanted that joy, that natural joy of giving which all parents delight in.

‘Sweetheart …’ His voice was urgent and he reached out to his child’s mother, to his love, his friend, his armour and shield for without her in his life he would be defenceless. ‘Sweetheart, don’t do this to us. Don’t throw away what we have … Jesus, Meggie … what a waste … what a bloody waste … you cannot mean to …’

At that precise moment the telephone began to ring.

Tom Fraser straightened up and put his hand to his back. He let out a sigh of relief as he stretched his long body, then leaned on his fork, turning to look back at the long furrow of black soil which he had just turned over. He and Will had cleared the last of the seed potatoes, ready to store them carefully in sacks which would stand in the barn for the winter. When they were done they would prepare the ground for next season’s sowing.

It was very cold and high up on the peaks there was already a lace cap of snow. Lower down the slopes the rich copper of the bracken made a startling contrast between the whiteness of the tops and the fields below which were still green. The sky was a heavy grey, patched with a strange feathered luminosity, threatening the blizzard which, Will said, would come in the next few days. There was already a smell of snow in the air and a thin, intermittent drift of sleet which settled on the men’s shoulders, melting immediately it touched them. They wore warm jackets, stout cord trousers and heavy boots and each had a hand-knitted muffler wound about his neck. They both wore a cap and woollen gloves but the exercise moved their blood richly through their veins and they were not cold. They had the ruddy colour of outdoor men well used to being on the move.

Will lifted his head and squinted up into the sky, then tutted irritably. He stood for a moment considering the increasing heaviness of the clouds then turned to look at the heaped piles of potatoes which lay along the furrow.

‘We’ll have to move these spuds, Tom. I thought they could have been left till morning but I reckon the snow will come tonight and then we’ll not be able to find them tomorrow. Damn it, if they’re covered and then left to lie here they’ll rot and all our work will have been for nowt.’ He shook his head in annoyance. ‘I would have brought the bloody wheelbarrow if I’d known. Well,
there’s
nothing for it, lad, we’ll have to go and fetch it. It’ll not take long and the walk will do us good, stretch our legs a bit.’

‘Shall I go, Will? You could be putting them together in one pile while I walk back to the barn. Save us a bit of time and we’ll have the job done that much quicker.’

Will looked at him sharply, surprised and not a little wary. It was no more than a week since his employer’s husband had thrown himself – taking his daughter with him – into the corner of the nursery, yelling of shells and snipers’ bullets, he’d been told, and Mrs Fraser had asked Will to be especially careful of him as they moved about the grounds. True, the doctor had left him some medication which had quietened him considerably, saying he would keep him on it for a week or so until he had recovered his frail composure and since then Tom had been quiescent, standing when he was told, sitting, washing his hands, just like a child. He was like a becalmed sailing craft with no wind in its sails, one that has come through a storm at sea and finds itself at peace at last. His eyes were clear and steady, his face was serene and his manner patient, but Will was not awfully certain that it was not due more to the sedative than a natural peace of mind. He’d had these ‘turns’ before, of course, and recovered from them so perhaps his mind had buried the incident which had disturbed him, as it had all the others from his past.

They were on the east side of the estate about ten minutes walk from the house, just on the edge of a stretch of woodland known as Lawty Wood. It had been too cold for the child or even the dogs to come with them, and Will himself had wondered whether it might perhaps have been better to stay in the barn or the woodworking shop but this was the last of the potatoes and if they could get them in before the snows came he would be relieved. Besides with winter here they would be spending a lot of time indoors and this might be their last chance to work the ground before it became too hard. He had plenty to occupy Tom and himself in the workshop during the winter months. Plans to make some garden furniture and he had an idea in his mind which he was certain would interest Tom, to build a dolls’ house for Beth. Her birthday was in April which would give them the whole of the winter to design and make, not only the house itself but the miniature furniture which would go in it. He was convinced the idea would delight Tom and keep him content and occupied in the long winter days ahead. Of course they would get out to feed
the
animals and clean out their winter shelter but this would be something special to keep Tom’s thoughts from his fears. His own mother and Edie had agreed to help with the tiny curtains and bedcovers and when they had finished up here, he meant to get off home and discuss his idea with Tom in front of the cheerful fire in the kitchen.

He stood for a moment, studying Tom Fraser’s quiet demeanour, considering what he should do. It would certainly save a lot of time if one of them went for the wheelbarrow whilst the other piled the potatoes in readiness for his return. Tom waited patiently to be told what he should do. It was very peaceful here inside his head today. His thoughts slipped painlessly in and out, nice thoughts about the warm, loving kiss Meg had given him this morning before she went to Ashbourne on business, thoughts about his little Beth and the comfort he had taken from the half hour he had spent with her as he read to her by the nursery fire. There had been no shelling for days, thank God, and it had been peaceful in the billet and Andy was fine now that the medics had taken him to the field hospital. He had really enjoyed the manual labour he had shared with Will this morning for it had sent the blood coursing vigorously through his veins and he had not had such a feeling of well-being since … since … since the days when he and Meggie and Martin had cycled to the Delamere forest.

He smiled, a sweet and gentle smile at Will, seeing no strangeness in the way his life now overlapped so effortlessly with that of the one he had once known. Martin, Meg, Beth, Will, mingled freely with Andy and Mrs Whitley, with Captain Holgate, his officer at Mons, with Edie and Mr Atkinson who had taught him all he knew about the earth and what he planted in it, and with Annie, and Emm who had died in the fire. They peopled his world, some more ghostly than others but today they were clear and happy, smiling behind Will’s shoulder, even old Andy grinning in that lovely Irish way he had with him, all blarney and peat bogs, the ‘Pals’ used to say about him, and with a Liverpool accent despite his lineage, you could cut with a knife.

‘I’ll go, Will, I’ll not be long.’ His smile deepened. ‘I’ll not have to be with this lot coming down on us. It’s going to blow up a blizzard before long,’ and before Will could stop him he turned and began to walk steadily in the direction of the hotel which stood on the other side of the small wood. As he stepped between
the
trees he turned, lifting the fork he still carried and called to Will.