The Good Provider (18 page)

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But be careful.’

‘What?’

‘How you – how you come out.’

‘Oh, aye.’

He checked, withdrew slowly until he was clear of her and then he gave a laugh, rolled to one side and folded his arms above his head. His hair was plastered to his forehead in scalloped curls. His eyes were lazy-lidded. He grinned, proud of himself, smug and satisfied. He did not seem to need her now or share her desire for closeness.

‘Well,’ he said, at length, ‘how does it feel to be Mrs Nicholson?’

‘It feels fine,’ Kirsty said, and, a moment later, clambered from the bed to make them both a cup of tea.

Oswalds’ Special Easter Cakes were nothing more than two crown-sized pieces of biscuit gummed together with a dab of fruit puree, given a lick of sugar-and-water with a small shellac brush and stuck with a ‘flower’ of dyed icing. To add distinction, and justify the extra halfpence on the price, the cakes were arranged by the dozen in tiny baskets of thin wicker which looked enticing in the windows of local grocery stores and confectioners’ stalls.

If the weather had held fine Kirsty might have enjoyed making and packing the ‘seasonal fare’ but the warm sunshine of the weekend had given way to a snarling north-easter that drove rain across the Greenfield and made spring seem very remote indeed. She had been sent back to the packing-tables out of the flour store, though the mysterious Lizzie Weekes had not yet returned. Kirsty did not know who was doing the measuring. Letty, when asked, shrugged indifferently as if to say that she did not care so long as it wasn’t her.

The week progressed in monotony and discomfort. The stone floors of the rooms were swept by icy draughts that chilled the feet and legs and made the back ache. Mrs McNeil was much affected and had to scurry away to the closets in the yard every quarter of an hour or so, much to the amusement of the younger girls who whistled and cheered the poor woman’s every trip out of doors. Kirsty plied her bristle brush, charged with sugar-water, and patted floral shapes on to hard biscuit until her whole body felt sticky and the cloying taste of icing made her gag. Sunday seemed like a dream now. Rain lashed the shed roof, wind moaned in its girders and the cake racks never seemed to empty. Even Letty had little to say for herself and the hours of each shift dragged by leadenly.

At home things were not much better. Now that he had ‘found the way’, as he put it, Craig could not get enough of her. He fondled, handled and examined her as if she were a pet and not his wife and, though she did not deny him, Kirsty resented it a little, particularly as he remained modest and would not let her see him or touch him, not even in the full heat of love-making. On Thursday morning she awakened to discover that her bleeding had started eight days before it was due. Embarrassed, she got up, dressed and made breakfast. Craig seemed oblivious to her condition. She did not enlighten him. She fed him and saw him off to Maitland Moss with hardly a word. She felt thick and sluggish and had to exert will-power to don her coat and scarf and leave the warm kitchen for a walk through rain-splashed streets to the Cakery.

Mrs Dykes was waiting to direct her to the flour store again for, with the weekend coming, there was pressure on the bakers to increase supplies and ‘her Tommy’ could not do it all by himself. That much was true. The unsavoury Tommy did not have a spare moment to practise seduction. Harassed, he rapped out an order for fifteen bowls at four scoops of rice-flour to each bowl and left Kirsty to it while he loped away into the bakehouse.

Wool-headed and awkward, Kirsty lifted the lid of the bin – it seemed to weigh a ton today – and peered down at the flour banked against the bin’s back wall, all tamped and clotted and damp. She was obliged to balance on her stomach to reach down to it. She had the obsessive fear that Tommy Dykes might steal up behind her and put his hand where it should not be. Today of all days she would die of humiliation if he did. But she filled seven bowls before Tommy showed himself, running, to whisk the bowls away and yell at her to get a bloody move on, Mrs High-and-Mighty, if you don’t mind. She yelled after him, ‘This bin’s near empty,’ but Tommy had gone and, victim of some crisis that had beset the masters, did not immediately return.

Kirsty pushed up the lid, leaned over, stretched down and poked the scoop into the flour in the corner.

At first she thought it was an imperfection in the flour itself, a stain – until the stain moved. It gave a puckering to the bulky stuff and a queer little surge. Frowning, Kirsty touched it with the tip of the spoon. She released a miniature landslide from the wall into the corner, a thick, dense, furtive covering which, after a second, also moved. She made a quick stiff stab with the tip of the scoop and lifted it up.

The grey mouse clung to the scoop by tiny grey forepaws.

Dusted with flour, wriggling and frantic, it swung in the air, chittering in anger or alarm, then it fell with a soft plop into the flour below.

Instantly a dozen mice were visible. Burrowing and wallowing into the broken nest in the bin’s corner, into gaps in the boards of the floor, they submerged and surfaced hideously.

Kirsty screamed. She flung away the scoop, kicked to fling herself clear of the bin. The lid slapped down, pinning her. She screamed. She heaved upward and projected herself backwards with such terrified force that she tripped and fell to the floor.

With the image of that writhing mass of flour-soaked vermin printed in her mind she felt her gorge rise. She imagined the mice swelling like yeast, swarming over the rim of the bin, over her legs and thighs. She clapped her hands to her mouth to check her retching and stumbled to her knees.

Tommy came running from the bakehouse, Mrs Dykes from the rooms. Neither had need to ask Kirsty to explain her outburst. Lizzie Weekes, and umpteen other girls, had taken sick because of it, because of the mice. With an arm about Kirsty’s waist the woman helped her through the store and out by a side door into the back yard, held her while she choked and was finally sick. With an iron fist Mrs Dykes kept Kirsty’s head extended over a puddle of brown rainwater.

‘That’s right, that’s it,’ she crooned. ‘Good, good.’

A heavy, snatching cramp began in Kirsty’s stomach. Icy cold sweat started on her brow. She pushed the woman from her and stiffly straightened herself. She wiped her face with her hand, shaking.

‘There’s a cold tap by a trough round the back there,’ said Mrs Dykes. ‘Wash yourself off, girl. I’ll wait for you.’

Kirsty, trembling, did as bidden. She found the old iron trough and ran clean water from a brass tap on a spout and wiped away the traces of sickness as best she could. She washed her face and rinsed her mouth. She could not stop shivering, though, and the cramp had not decreased. She returned to the yard by the side door.

‘Better, hen?’ Mrs Dykes asked.

‘Aye, a bit.’

‘I thought, since you were a farm lass, you’d be used to such things.’

‘I – I didn’t expect—’

‘Ach, ye canny keep the damned creatures out.’

‘In – in the bins?’

‘Only at the bottom,’ said Mrs Dykes. ‘What’s wrong wi’ you? Are you still feelin’ sick?’

‘Aye.’

‘I suppose you’ll want to go home?’

‘Aye.’

‘Go, then.’

Kirsty put a hand to her brow and clenched her knees together to force herself to stand up straight. ‘Am – am I bein’ sacked?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Mrs Dykes. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

‘Not – not for the flour—’

‘The packing-room,’ said Mrs Dykes. ‘You’re no’ fit for the flour store after all.’

‘What about today? Do I get paid for it?’

‘Naw, hen, you sacrifice the shift.’

‘But I’ve worked for five—’

‘It’s the rules.’

‘In that case,’ said Kirsty, ‘I’ll stay.’

The woman uttered a
huh
, squinted at Kirsty, then gestured towards the door with her thumb.

‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘But if you’re sick in there—’

‘I won’t be,’ said Kirsty.

‘Find a clean apron, then.’

Kirsty nodded, made her way back into the room where, pale and shaken and sore, she took her place between Letty and Mrs McNeil and worked out the shift’s end assembling Easter cakes.

Craig came home late. Playfully he tossed his cap into the kitchen before him. Kirsty was at the sink, stirring cold water into the potatoes to stop them from burning in the pot. She flinched when the cap came skittering across the floor.

‘How’s my wee honeysuckle tonight then?’ Craig asked jovially.

Kirsty did not answer. He came up behind her, put a hand about her and cupped her breast.

She drew away from him angrily.

‘What’s wrong wi’ you?’

‘It’s the wrong time, Craig.’

‘It’s only five past eight, for God’s sake. I had one pint o’ beer, that’s all.’

She could smell beer on him, cloudy and sour. She pulled away further, to the oven in the range.

She had to tell him what was wrong but she did not know how to do it, what words to use. She felt tearful, in need of affection. But she would not throw herself into his arms. She went on preparing and serving dinner. Craig would not understand why the discovery of mice in a flour bin had made her sick. She really could not talk of it, try to make him see the difference between vermin in a bakery and vermin in a barn. She felt separated from him because she could not let him make love to her.

After dinner she went out into the closet on the stairs, seated herself in the darkness and had a good cry. When she returned to the kitchen she found Craig engaged in writing a letter.

‘Is that to your mother?’

‘To Dad.’

‘He never replied to the others.’

‘He’s no’ much of a letter-writer.’

‘Are you tellin’ him you’ve found work?’

‘I am.’

‘Are you givin’ him our address?’

‘Why should I not?’ said Craig. ‘Don’t look so bloody po-faced, Kirsty, old man Clegg’ll not make trouble for you now. It’s too late.’

She hadn’t been thinking of Clegg or the Baird Home officers. She collected dishes from the table and put them into the new enamel basin by the sink.

‘Craig, would you not like to go back to Dalnavert?’

Craig glanced round at her. ‘Would you?’

‘No.’

He gave a shrug. ‘Neither would I.’

‘Do you like it here, with me?’

Craig said, ‘Mr Malone tells me I’ll have a cart o’ my own soon. That’ll mean more money. Come the winter I could be drawin’ as much as twenty-three or -fourshillin’s every week.’

She poured water, lukewarm, from the kettle into the basin, washed the dinner dishes and put them away. She set out the things for breakfast, clinking them down inches from Craig’s letter pad. She felt all up and down with him, angry and hurt, as if he were to blame for what had happened at Oswalds’.

Pencil, new and sharp, poised over paper. He had written only a few lines in spite of the time he had been at it.

How long could she live without Craig, without the money he brought in? Not long, not in a house of her own. She could see his reflection in the long glass of the window as he sat back, head tilted, staring up for inspiration at the strings of damp washing that dangled from the pulley overhead.

‘Craig, I’m goin’ to bed.’

She wanted the day to be over, to end.

‘Best place for you, in this mood,’ Craig muttered.

He had divined the reason for her shyness without having to be told.

She went into the hallway and undressed. She put on a pair of old drawers under her nightgown and came back into the kitchen to find that he had completed the letter, had addressed the envelope and was in process of licking the stamp.

She touched him, kissed the side of his neck. ‘I’m – I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault,’ he said, ‘I suppose.’

It was an hour later before he came to bed. Kirsty was still awake, not even drowsy, too tense and overwrought to find sleep easily.

Craig climbed over her to the inside place by the wall, settled, his back to her. Kirsty studied the kitchen. He had neglected to smoor the fire in the grate, to turn down the gas, to draw the curtain over the window.

She should get up and do these things but she feared that Craig would resent it, would take it as criticism. She closed her eyes. She wanted to hug him, hold him, share an intimacy that had no sexual end. But he inched away as if he sensed what was on her mind. She shrank down into her burrow in the mattress, tears in her eyes.

Outside, rain pattered upon the window pane, a broken gutter splashed water into the backcourt and, much closer, the tap drip, drip, dripped, not maddeningly but with a steady soothing regularity as if the appointments of the house had more sympathy for Kirsty than had her man and, in substitute, sang her their own soft lullaby.

Bob McAndrew was old enough to have been Craig’s father. He was thick about the midriff, had a full walrus moustache and smoked a dainty clay pipe that was all bowl and no stem. The pipe hung upside down and dropped occasional gouts of ash into his lap, an occurrence that did not seem to bother Bob at all, though he would usually remove it dedicatedly from his mouth at that point and spit to one side, to the peril of any poor pedestrians who happened to be near the cart.