The Most Precious Thing (48 page)
The ambulance thudded over a pothole in the road, one of many caused by the intensive bombing last year. David stirred and moaned, and Olive’s eyes narrowed as Carrie murmured, ‘It’s all right, dear, it’s all right.’ She wouldn’t be ‘dearing’ him much longer if she did but know it, and once David had thrown the chit out, someone would need to keep house for him and Matthew.
Olive straightened her back, staring straight ahead now. And that would suit her, she’d had enough of Freda Browell to last her a lifetime. When she thought of the humiliations she’d endured at that woman’s hands, treating her employer’s own mother as little more than a skivvy. But she’d see her day with that one too, once her boy was home. Oh aye, Freda Browell would get short shrift all right. And what was the betting that with Margaret gone and Alec having no other bairns, he’d see fit to take Matthew into his home?
She sat picturing the years ahead. Once Alec was home from the war and had sent Freda packing, she and Matthew would leave David and move in with him. She would be mistress of her own home again, and what a home.
Time had a way of making truth out if you were patient enough, and she had been waiting for the right opportunity to speak her mind for more than a little while. Even if Carrie denied it, David only had to look at the boy with eyes unclouded by his obsession for the McDarmount girl to see Matthew was Alec all over. And weak and low as he was right now, without the physical side of his love for the chit paramount, he’d see all the more clearly. She’d have a word with him as soon as he was settled, she wouldn’t delay. And after all, it was kinder in the long run for him to know, wasn’t it? The truth never hurt anyone.
As it happened, it wasn’t possible for either Olive or Carrie to speak further with David that day. On their arrival at the infirmary, another doctor examined him while the two women sat on hardbacked chairs in the corridor outside, and he decided to operate immediately. Carrie just had time to kiss a drugged David goodbye before he was whisked out of sight. The first doctor remained with them just long enough to tell them to come back that evening although David might not be conscious by then.
He wasn’t, and the following evening, on the dot of visiting time, Matthew and Carrie stood waiting in the area outside the small side ward where David had been placed for the present, and Olive joined them.
‘Hello, Gran.’ Matthew smiled at his grandmother and Olive smiled back.
‘Hello, lad.’ Olive offered her cheek for a dutiful kiss and totally ignored Carrie, who stared at her mother-in-law for a moment before giving a mental shrug.
When the visiting bell rang, Matthew stepped forward and opened the door for the two women. As Carrie entered the dismal, green-painted room, her eyes went immediately to the bed. While they had been waiting they had been informed by a brisk, no-nonsense nurse that Mr Sutton was due to be moved to the main ward tomorrow if he’d had a comfortable night, and that Doctor was pleased with his progress. But when Carrie saw the cage over the bottom part of the bed, her heart came up into her mouth despite the encouraging words.
She walked over to the bed, Olive and Matthew following her. David appeared to be asleep. The face on the pillow was as white as the sheet beneath it, but then the eyes opened and it was David looking at her, his lips parting in a smile. ‘I’ve been waiting all day to see you,’ he said, his voice sounding the same as always.
Carrie did not speak because she was finding it impossible to form coherent words; with an unintelligible murmuring she bent over him and kissed him in a way which made words quite superfluous. His hands pulled her down on to his chest so she was sitting on the bed with her upper body on his, and they remained like this, their lips joined, until a sharp little cough reminded Carrie they were not alone.
She pulled away, saying, ‘Matthew and your mam . . .’ but David caught her again and placed one more hungry kiss on her mouth.
Colour was hot in her face when she turned to look at Matthew and Olive. Matthew was smiling somewhat embarrassedly, but she saw immediately that Olive had taken exception to the show of affection. Carrie continued to sit on the edge of the bed, her hand in David’s. ‘Come and say hello, Matthew, and bring that chair closer to the bed for your grandma.’ She turned back to David, her voice soft as she murmured ‘I thought I was going to lose you.’
‘Not me, lass. I’m built like a homing pigeon and my home is where you are. You couldn’t lose me if you tried.’
Matthew approached the bed and punched David lightly on the shoulder. ‘You all right then?’
‘It has to be said I’ve been better, lad.’ There was a remnant of a smile, but it faded when Olive came to the bedside.
She stared down at him for a moment before she said, ‘You pulled through then.’
‘Aye, Mam, I pulled through, thanks to Carrie’s da.’
‘Him? What did he have to do with it?’
‘He helped me with Walter. But for Sandy we’d have been back at the original fall or buried under the one that took the others. Either way I’d be a goner.’
Olive did not comment on this but her chin came down into her neck. Her hands were joined on the handle of her big black handbag which was resting on the slight mound of her stomach beneath the grey coat she was wearing, and she continued to survey her son silently for a moment before she said, without any preamble, ‘She’s made a monkey of you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Your lady wife with her fine ideas about going up in the world. She found herself in a fix all them years ago and then along came you, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and before you knew where you were you were pulled in so fast it made your head spin.’
The look on his face cut off her flow of words but only for a moment. She had waited too long to have her say and nothing was going to stop her now.
‘Did you ever really believe he was yours?’ She gestured with her thumb at Matthew. ‘After he was born, I mean?’
‘Stop this. He’s ill--’
‘He’s Alec’s,’ Olive went on remorselessly. ‘Open your eyes, man, and see what’s in front of you. She was carrying on with your brother and that’s why she married you, to conceal the fact she was expecting Alec’s child. You were a means to an end, that’s all. That’s all you’ve ever been and ever will be to a woman like her.’
She had to deny this, she had to stop it. The command was in her head but Carrie was gripped by paralysing shock.
‘She took you for a ride, she took us all for a ride. No doubt she meant to trap Alec into marrying her but with him being betrothed to Margaret, he likely gave her the cold shoulder, and so she looked around for another pansy. And there you were.’
David’s gaze moved away from Olive’s face, his eyes resting first on Carrie and then moving to Matthew who was standing stock still. David knew his mother was speaking the truth; he had buried it deep in his subconscious from the beginning because he wouldn’t have been able to stand living with the fact that the baby was his brother’s child. And he would have killed him for forcing her. If he had known for sure, he would have gone down the line for Alec.
Even if there had still been any doubt in his mind, the look on Carrie’s face confirmed that his mother was telling the truth, the vicious old witch.
His hand tightened on Carrie’s but he did not look at her or at Matthew because the boy’s face was painful to behold. He kept his gaze on the woman who had borne him, speaking slowly and quietly as he said, ‘There are no secrets between my wife and I, there never have been. You can’t hurt us, Mam, don’t you know that by now? You can’t touch us, and the reason is because you’re not worth that much’ - he clicked his fingers - ‘to me or the rest of the family.’
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that, your own mother.’
‘Mother?’ David shook his head slowly. ‘You might have been the woman who brought us into the world, but you were never a mother. Even the most primary of God’s creatures are better mothers than you to their offspring.’
‘She’s poisoned you against me.’
‘No, Mam, you did that job yourself years before Carrie and I got wed. Right from a bairn I can remember wondering why my mam wasn’t like other mothers. You never kissed or cuddled me or even gave a kind word, and the only contact I can recall is a clip round the ear. But shall I tell you the person I most feel sorry for? Alec. Because you smothered him, you took a normal lad and turned him into a male version of you. How me da stood it all those years I’ll never know, because I tell you straight, I couldn’t have.’
‘Your da? You dare hold your da up to me after what he’s done? Abandoning his family--’
‘The only person me da left was you, and you know it. He stuck you until we were all grown up and could fend for ourselves and then he went, and every single jack one of us wished him well. He’s got a woman down in London, you didn’t know that, did you? A nice woman, kind, who lost her husband in the first month of the war and thinks Da is the bee’s knees. He’s happy for the first time in his life, Mam.’
Olive stared at her son, her face working. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said at last. ‘He wouldn’t. We’re still married.’
‘Believe what you want.’ David’s voice was weary now. ‘But it’s the truth and there’s not one of us who blames him.’
Olive turned without saying another word, and when the door had banged behind her, David lay back on his pillows, sweat forming in beads on his brow. Carrie bent over him, patting his white face with a handkerchief she had dampened with water from the glass on his bedside locker, and when his breathing had steadied again she lifted his head for him to take a few sips of water.
Matthew had stood quite still while all this was going on, and it was only when David was resting again, eyes shut, that he spoke. ‘Is it true? What Gran said about Uncle Alec being my da?’
David’s eyes opened and he looked at the stiff face of the boy he had always tried to be a father to, and what he saw there caused him to close his eyes again.
Carrie couldn’t answer for a moment. Her worst nightmare had come true.
‘I asked you a question, Mam. Is Uncle Alec my real da?’
Carrie put one hand on the iron bedstead for support, her mind searching for a way to tell him. In the end there was only one way to say it. ‘Yes.’ She knew she might lose both of them, Matthew and David, but things had gone too far to prevaricate.
They looked at each other, Carrie and her son, and in answer to what she read in his face, she said, ‘But it wasn’t like she said, Matthew, you have to believe me. I was fifteen years old, I’d had too much to drink at your aunt’s wedding and--’
She was talking to the wind. He had turned on his heel and gone, banging the door after him so hard it shook the room.
‘Leave him.’ She would have gone after him but David’s voice from the bed caught her. She looked down at him. His eyes were open, his expression tender. ‘Leave him for now, lass, he’s got a lot to take in. He’ll be back and then you can explain, but for now he’s all riled up and likely wants to hurt someone. He’d say things he’d regret and that’d help no one.’
‘Oh, David.’ She stared at him, unsure of what he was really feeling. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry it was Alec.’
‘So am I, lass, for you. It was bad enough he did what he did, but for you to have to see him, for him to be my brother and part of the family . . . I’m surprised you ever took me.’
‘It was the best thing I ever did.’ Her voice was shaking but strangely she found she couldn’t cry; the look in Matthew’s eyes as he had stared at her prevented the relief of tears. ‘You saved me.’
‘Saved you?’
‘From doing something silly; from having to go away; from never getting over what Alec did.’
‘Come here.’ He held out his hand and she sat down beside him again, the trembling which she couldn’t control communicating itself to him through her fingers.
‘You helped me to find real love, David, but . . .’
‘But?’
‘I don’t know why you love me like you do,’ she said, a bewildered note in her voice.
‘Because you’re the other part of me, the beautiful part. Because you’re all I’ve ever wanted and will ever want. Without you I’m nothing, lass, and I know it. That’s why . . .’ He paused, and then went on, ‘That’s why I’ve always been scared you’ll look at me one day and see me for what I am. An ordinary bloke.’
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