The Oyster Catchers (33 page)

When Jamie left, the house fell silent and Fon stood for a moment, drinking in the feeling of peace, steeling herself for the moment when her day would begin in earnest. She decided she would see to Katherine first, while Patrick slept.

Katherine would need to be washed; although her thin frame shrank in pain from the touch of the flannel, she would nevertheless be grateful for the cleansing feel of the water on her skin.

Fon closed her eyes for a moment; never had she known such a terrible, overwhelming feeling of pity for anyone in her life. Katherine was racked with pain but she clung on to life, wanting, she said, to see Christmas with her son before she relinquished herself to the inevitable.

Galvanizing herself into action, Fon poured water from the kettle into a bowl and let it stand while she fetched a fresh towel from the line above the fireplace. Warmth seemed to comfort Katherine and she could do with all the comfort Fon could provide.

‘Morning.’ Katherine’s voice was thread-like but with a note of cheerfulness that belied the transparently taut look on her face.

‘Morning,’ Fon forced a smile, ‘wash time, I’ll be as careful as possible, I promise.’

‘Just my face and hands for now,’ Katherine said softly, ‘leave anything else until I’m feeling stronger.’ It was an unusual request. Katherine was meticulous about herself, she must be feeling ill, Fon thought in apprehension.

‘You had a bad night,’ Fon said. ‘What if I get
the doctor out, he might give you something to ease you?’

She held Katherine’s skeletal fingers and washed them gently.

‘Yes, all right,’ Katherine said, her voice little more than a gasp of pain. Fon glanced up at her face.

‘Worse today, is it?’ she asked and Katherine closed her eyes for a moment as if the effort of replying was too much for her. Slowly, she nodded her head.

‘I don’t think I can hold out for Christmas after all,’ she said wearily.

Fon completed her task as rapidly as she could and then smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ll get Patrick and take him down to the doctor’s with me,’ she said, ‘I won’t be long, I promise you.’

With Patrick wrapped in a Welsh shawl, Fon set out for the huddle of houses that clung to the hillside far below Honey’s Farm. Patrick was chewing with enjoyment on a crust dipped in honey, for Fon felt there was no time to stop and feed him properly.

The doctor’s house stood on its own, a high, mellow, stone building with many windows that gleamed in the pale sunshine.

His wife came to the door. ‘The doctor is out on his rounds,’ she said, ‘but I know he’s planning to call on Katherine today some time.’

Fon sighed. ‘She’s real bad,’ she said pleadingly, ‘isn’t there anywhere I could find Dr Haney, get him to come to Katherine at once?’

‘He’s gone in the pony and trap, I don’t know where to start to look for him. I’m sorry.’

Fon watched, as the doctor’s wife moved indoors; she might be sorry but by the look on her face she was used to requests like Fon’s. No doubt the doctor’s wife had seen a good many people die and learned to take it in her stride.

Fon returned home and set down Patrick to play in
the garden. The small grass patch was fenced in and Patrick would come to no harm playing in the fresh air for a time.

Fon went back into Katherine’s room and saw with a dart of anguish that she had tears on her thin cheeks. ‘I know I’m weak,’ Katherine said in her thread-like voice, ‘but I don’t think I can stand it any more. Fon, will you help me?’

‘I don’t know how to,’ Fon said desperately. She wished Jamie would come in or that the doctor would call, anyone who could take the responsibility from her, for she knew full well what Katherine was asking.

‘The bottle of medicine, in the drawer over there, fetch it for me, Fon, just put it beside me. And water, a glass of water, please, Fon.’

Fon hesitated and then looking into Katherine’s haunted, beseeching eyes, she moved across the room and opened the drawer taking out a dark green bottle, staring at it with horrified fascination.

‘I’ll get you some water,’ Fon said, unable to recognize her own voice, ‘I won’t be a minute.’

She hurried into the kitchen and stood for a moment staring wildly around her. From outside, she could hear Patrick babbling nonsense to himself. She glanced through the window and saw the baby, rounded, plump and healthy, and she shuddered as she thought of the woman in the room across the passageway, dying in pain, wanting only release.

It was against all the good book said, Fon knew that, but she knew, too, that God was merciful, he would not want any one of his creatures to suffer under such a burden.

At last, she plucked up the courage to take the glass of water through to the bedroom and stopped short in her tracks. As though in a dream, Fon saw that the small green bottle was empty, it had fallen from Katherine’s fingers and was lying on the quilted cover. She picked
it up and stood it on the chest at the bedside, then bit her lip as she looked down at the woman in the bed.

‘It’s all right,’ Katherine whispered, ‘it’s going to be peaceful now, just look after Jamie and Pat as you promised.’

‘I will,’ Fon said earnestly, ‘I’ll never leave them, I give you my word of honour as God is my judge.’

Fon heard the back door open and then the sound of Jamie banging the mud from his boots on the step.

‘He’s just in time.’ Katherine forced a smile, her pain seemed to have gone and the lines of her thin face had eased.

Jamie came in, his stockinged feet making no sound on the boards. He looked eagerly towards the bed and sat down, leaning over his wife.

‘I had to come back home,’ he said, ‘I just felt, strange, I can’t explain it.’ A variety of expressions fleeted across his face, anxiety, hope, bewilderment and a dawning realization that made his big shoulders slump.

‘It’s the end, my love,’ Katherine whispered, ‘but don’t be sad, I’m glad to go, so I am.’

Jamie looked up at Fon frantically, as if somehow she could perform a miracle. ‘She looks better, doesn’t she look better, Fon?’ he said pleadingly.

Fon hung her head, her tongue felt as though it had swollen to fill her mouth. Her eyes ached with unshed tears, but she knew it would do no good to break down now, no good at all.

‘Katherine, my beautiful girl, you can’t leave me,’ Jamie said hoarsely. ‘Fon,’ he turned, ‘fetch the doctor, he’ll know what to do.’

Katherine was shaking her head. ‘Don’t fret so,’ she whispered, ‘the time has come, don’t grieve for me, Jamie, love, I’ll be looking down on you wishing you all the happiness in the world.’

‘How can you say that?’ Jamie asked. ‘I can’t be happy without you, Katherine, you must know that.’ He looked
over his shoulder at Fon, more desperately this time. ‘Fon, the doctor.’

‘I’ve been to fetch him,’ she said and her voice sounded distant, odd. ‘He’ll come as soon as he can, don’t you worry, now.’

Katherine looked up at Fon. ‘The baby,’ she mouthed the words, ‘bring him.’

Fon hurried out into the garden, the sun was still shining, a pale, wintery sun but the sun nevertheless. The birds were singing in the chestnut trees that bordered the farm, it might have been a normal November day except that within the farmhouse walls a fine, brave woman lay dying.

Fon picked Patrick up in her arms and he clung to her, nuzzling his head against her shoulder, ready to sleep again like the baby he was.

She took him in to the bedroom and although Katherine’s eyes devoured the little boy, Fon knew she would not be strong enough to hold him.

Fon sat on the bed, as close as she dared to Katherine without hurting her. Katherine took her son’s hand and smoothed the plump skin, her pale eyes alight with love.

It seemed incongruous to Fon, the whole strange picture: Jamie big, healthy, his skin ruddy from the fresh air; the baby round, bouncing with health; and in the bed, the very picture of death lay Katherine, struggling to breathe her last.

Fon tried to take her mind above the room, above the woman in the bed and her pain; she felt Patrick’s plump body heavy in her lap and clung on to the baby as though he could keep her sane.

‘The doctor,’ Jamie said hoarsely, ‘go look for him, Fon, bring him back,
please
.’

Fon handed the baby to Jamie and, with a swift glance at the woman in the bed, moved out of the room. The doctor, however good he might be, could do nothing for Katherine now.

‘She seemed frantic,’ the doctor’s wife said calmly, ‘only a young girl she was, too, the one Jamie’s taken on to look after the baby, wants you to go up to the farm as soon as possible.’

Doctor Haney was unruffled though his weather-beaten face revealed his feelings of pity. ‘Won’t do much good,’ he said, ‘the poor woman is past helping, the sooner she’s taken the better.’ He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy. Whisky would have been better, or so the old wives would have it; whisky it seemed set the blood flowing while brandy made the blood sluggish and slow. Still a brandy might help him face his trip to the farmhouse.

It wasn’t poor Katherine he was worried about, it was that husband of hers. Jamie would take it badly, he was a devoted husband and father if ever Haney saw one. Why did bad things always happen to those who didn’t deserve it? But then wasn’t he past asking that sort of question? If there was a God up there, he didn’t ever listen to Dr Terence Haney.

‘Hadn’t you better get up to the farm then?’ his wife asked, a trifle impatiently, Haney thought, something in the young girl’s demeanour must have impressed her greatly.

Haney sighed. ‘Aye, I’ll get up there, no good putting it off I don’t suppose.’

He picked up his hat and bag from the hallway and sighed; a doctor was a man not a miracle worker, there was only so much that could be done for a woman suffering an incurable sickness. Perhaps he would do just as well to go back to the old-time remedies used by his grandfather.

Haney smiled grimly to himself; imagine picking some agrimony, distilling the leaves or roots or some such thing and administering it to his patients. Yet were
the methods he now had in his possession any more effective? Not, he feared, in this case.

He was just about to climb aboard the trap when he saw the figure of the young girl from the farm running towards him. Haney spent a moment watching the slim figure, admiring the honey-coloured hair and the soft lift of young breasts against linen and the occasional glimpse of a slim ankle beneath white petticoats. He sighed for days gone by and took up the reins of the horse knowing he had a duty to do.

Fon was so relieved to see the doctor, she came to a sudden, breathless stop. ‘It’s Katherine!’ she said, ‘Jamie sent me to fetch you, will you come?’

The doctor gestured for her to climb up beside him, moving his bag a little way to accommodate her. Fon took a shuddering breath.

‘It may be too late,’ she said softly, ‘Katherine is very bad.’

She saw Dr Haney nod almost imperceptibly as he shook the reins and clicked his tongue at the animal, causing the horse to jolt forward.

The roadway back up the hill was winding and slow and Fon forced her shaking hands together knowing there was nothing to do but accept the way things were. She could change nothing, not even the doctor could alter the course of events, not now. It was too late, Fon thought, her mind on the green bottle, far too late.

The doctor was a silent man, moody, some said, but Fon had witnessed Dr Haney being kindness itself to Katherine and she had a great deal of respect for him.

At last, he drew the horse to a stop outside the whitewashed farmhouse and climbed down on to the pathway, holding up his hand to Fon.

She jumped down easily and followed the doctor into the dimness of the house.

She heard the sound of wailing and knew with a leap
of her heart that it was a man’s voice crying out in anguish. She felt the doctor falter for a moment and then move forward again and close behind him, she entered the bedroom where Katherine lay.

Jamie was clinging to the now sleeping baby, staring down at the figure in the bed. Katherine’s eyes were closed, her lids pale blue, almost transparent, but a slight breath ruffled the collar of her cotton nightgown. Katherine was still alive.

Dr Haney laid a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, letting it rest there for a moment. Then, he went through the motions of examining Katherine, listening to her faint breathing and touching her emaciated wrist with robust brown fingers that had become as delicate as feathers.

He stepped back and shook his head and Fon saw him glance at the green bottle before picking it up and putting it away in his case. The responsibility now was not all hers, she thought with a tremendous feeling of release.

Katherine’s eyes flickered open and for a moment they were clear and lucid. They moved from one to the other, lingering on Fon.

‘Remember your promise,’ she said. She smiled radiantly at the man she loved and then softly and quietly, Katherine died.

For a long moment there was silence in the room, no-one moved, as if to move would be some sort of sacrilege. It was Dr Haney who broke the spell and covered Katherine’s face with the sheet.

‘God rest your soul,’ he said and turned away quickly. ‘Your wife, Jamie,’ he said, ‘was the bravest woman I know.’

He walked to the door. ‘You’ll have arrangements to make,’ he said, ‘make them at once, Jamie, that’s my advice.’ He left then and Jamie stood as though in a daze.

Fon took Patrick away from him and settled him into
his cot. She brushed the sweat-dampened curls away from his forehead and reluctantly returned to where Jamie was standing like a lost soul in the kitchen.

‘She’s gone,’ he said gesturing in bewilderment, ‘Katherine’s gone and I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.’

Fon stood there uncertainly for a moment and then, feeling as though unseen hands were guiding her, she moved towards him.

‘Come on,’ she said gently, ‘I’m here, I’ll look after you.’

He came to her like a child, a big, awkward child and, as Fon folded him in her arms, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had found her destiny.