A Pinch of Salt Page 8

  Kate was forced to agree. It would be better if Mrs Murphy were to take over the running of the house.

  ‘I don’t want Colm cleaning and cooking. When I make soup, I’ll make a big pot and bring it down and the cottage takes no time to tidy up; I’ll be down twice a week to clean so Colm’s no to miss the school or you either.’

  Bridie’s murmured, ‘What about, Charlie?’ was dismissed. If Charlie didn’t like it, he could lump it. After all, Kate had decided to lump one or two things herself.

  Wisely, Charlie did not interfere. Like the rest of the village, he waited for Kate to fall pregnant; that would keep her in her own house where she belonged.

  Mrs Murphy waited with the others but here was their three-month anniversary and no sign. She had a special gift for them to mark the occasion and toiled with it up the road, past the Presbyterian kirk, past the dark, forbidding wood to where the cottage stood, bathed for once in sunshine. Charlie was in the little garden, his plans for fresh vegetables not too far forward.

  ‘Auntie Molly,’ called Charlie in delight, and his voice brought Kate out of the kitchen.

  ‘Come in, come in and I’ll put on the kettle. What are you doing climbing all the way out here?’ Kate scolded. ‘Jings,’ she exclaimed as the box she took from the old lady emitted an angry squawk.

  Mrs Murphy laughed. ‘I’ll no open it till we’ve had our tea for it’s a hen and you’ll no want that in your nice clean kitchen, Kate.’

  Charlie rubbed his hands in anticipation. ‘Boy, never mind the tea. A hen? I’ll hae its neck wrung in two shakes,’ he finished, picking up the box and making for the door. ‘Ye’ll stay for a meal, Auntie.’

  ‘You will not.’ Kate spoke calmly and Charlie knew the tone well enough to know that her mind was set. ‘Oh not you, Mrs Murphy, you’re more than welcome’ – what else could she say to someone who was her husband’s aunt and would, one day very soon, be her step-mother? ‘But it’s soup we’ll be having and not chicken soup either.’ She smiled cajolingly at her husband. ‘Charlie, think; a hen means eggs, fresh eggs near every day and then when it’s past laying, it’s soup and a bit stew too. It’s a wonderful present. Thank you very much.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s me that’ll have to be making a pen for it.’ Charlie accepted the loss of his dinner philosophically. ‘That being the case, I’ll have some of that tea.’

  The pen was never made for Jessy – as Kate named her hen – but for a while, until the winter, she remained near the cottage and laid a large brown egg in a nest of dead leaves in a tumbledown outhouse three or four times a week. Shortly after the first frost Jessy disappeared.

  ‘It’ll be one of the foxes,’ sniffed Kate, half in anger, half in sorrow, for she had come to rely, not only on the lovely eggs, but on the cheery chirping with which the brown hen had invariably greeted her. She pulled some Brussels sprouts – not Charlie – he got too tired for much heavy digging. ‘Just when I really needed you, Jessy,’ she muttered as she looked at the dark earth and saw not it but the bright brown eye of the hen as she had pecked in the dirt beside her. For Kate had ‘fallen’ at last and fresh eggs were supposed to be really good for someone in her condition. How she had dreaded her weekly visits to the village shop where it seemed the only subject worth discussing was her fertility. She had actively discouraged such prying into her private life and to her chagrin, had earned an undeserved reputation.

  ‘Here comes Madame Hoighty-Toighty,’ had whispered Violet Fenton from behind her counter. ‘Always was above herself with the books she wanted tae read at the school and her always chattin’ up the doctor. Wonder if he’ll rush up the hill to deliver her weans, if such a skinny body could ever get one in the first place.’

  At last, however, Kate had discovered that she was pregnant. During the few short months of her marriage she had welcomed her monthly period for, although the word menstruation was never mentioned, Charlie never sought his connubial rights during these times. She never counted the days but would find herself thinking as she lay waiting for Charlie to be deeply asleep so that she could get up to clean herself, another few days and I’ll get a wee rest. This month there was no respite and it was in fact Charlie who had noticed. He had climbed into the bed beside her as she lay with the covers tucked up under her chin and pulled up her nightgown before rolling himself on top of her. ‘Can I have a wee go, Kate? Has the curse of Eve no struck yet?’

  He did not wait for an answer but began his violent bucking while she lay totally unresponsive beneath him. The curse of Eve, her detached mind thought. ‘That’s right; I’m late. What’s wrong with me? Oh dear God, don’t say I have to put up with this every night, for Charlie now had his hands tightly clamped to her buttocks as he tried to fuse their bodies together until he exploded into her with a confused babbling and that slobber down her neck that she hated almost as much as she hated the sticky, smelly fluid now pouring down her thighs.

  ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Kate, that was the best ever and do you know why? I’ve given you a bairn, Kate, that’s why there’s no curse. Damn, if you’d listen to the men wondering if I was man enough to fix you, but I have, haven’t I? My lungs are buggered but there’s nowt wrong wi’ this.’ Proudly, and almost fondly, he patted his limp penis and hurriedly Kate averted her eyes. ‘Bloody hell, Kate, could you no even pretend you like it? Do you think for one moment that don’t know ye jump up as fast as ye can tae clean me off; that’s probably why you took so long to fall.’

  Still she said nothing.

  ‘At least put some water on the fire with the winter coming. If you have tae wash yourself’, I’d as soon you washed in warm water.’

  She climbed out of bed and went into the front room. Differing emotions were warring in her troubled mind. Anger with herself that she had not realized that her haste to wash herself after Charlie’s lovemaking had hurt him; a very real distaste for all aspects of the physical part of marriage; and now a swiftly growing euphoria that she might indeed be expecting a child. This last feeling would, in the months to come, be in danger of being swamped by terror of the actual process of giving birth, but for tonight there was only joy.

  A baby, a baby of my very own.

  Tonight the memories of her mother’s confinements remained hidden in the recesses of her mind; they would rise soon enough to taunt her. Tonight, as she scrubbed, she did not feel the bristles; she thought only of a small, defenceless Bridie, but this Bridie would be her very own to love and to keep for ever and ever. ‘My baby,’ she thought and her ecstasy was the nearest she came to orgasm in those early days. ‘My very own baby.’

  7

  KATE WAITED SEVERAL weeks to tell Pa and Bridie. Firstly, she was not sure that she could bring herself to see her dear Dr Hyslop as a patient and for such an intimate condition. Secondly, her realization that she was about to bring new life into the world had forced the terrible dilemma she was in over religion to surface again. She had married in the Kirk because nothing had seemed to matter too much after the deaths of her brothers, but she had still been drawn to the dim peace of the Roman Catholic chapel. She had gone there several times but never with any real purpose in front of her. Life and its partner, death, were more bearable if one believed in God, and, as she knelt on the hard wooden kneeler, she thought about her life and about Liam and her brothers and sisters, yes, and Charlie. She never consciously prayed and never used the prayers she had learned as a child but when she left the quietness she felt at peace.

  Now, with the knowledge of the baby, all the half-remembered lessons came back. She had been baptized a Roman Catholic, she was still a Catholic and here she was expecting a baby and her marriage had taken place in the Kirk. In the eyes of God was she married at all?

  As usual she communed in her heart to the ghost of Mary Kate and one day she had a visitor to whom she told everything. One cold morning she had gone out into the garden and there, looking like a king, dressed in his magnificent autumnal finery, had strutted a cock phea
sant. He did not fly off with the usual violent whirring of wings but, after sizing up the danger to be expected from the small figure in the doorway, went on about his business.

  ‘Well, that’s me well and truly in my place,’ laughed Kate, ‘not even a bird’s frightened of me.’

  ‘Have you a family, my fine sir?’ she asked the pheasant. ‘Sure, you have the look of a family man about you, or is it the founder of one of them grand dynasties, more like?’

  She rested her hands lightly on her flat stomach and moved out into the thin sunshine; still he stayed, pecking the earth.

  ‘I, sir,’ she said slowly to savour the pleasure of telling, ‘I, sir, am going to be a mammy. What do you think of that then?’

  He looked at her out of his hard little eye but made no move and Kate went on. ‘Right now, it’s the embarrassment, you see. I have to go to the doctor, but he’ll know what Charlie’s been doing. Sure, I know he knows, they all know, but now they’ll really know, and I hate all the little eyes on me. I wish my mam was here.’

  Oh, Mam, how can I be so happy and so scared at the same time? Sometimes I think of having my own wee baby and there’s joy in me like I’ve never felt before and then, sometimes, at night when Charlie’s asleep, I get frightened for I remember your screams. But on a morning like this . . . forgetting the bird, she took a further step into the garden and, with an angry whirr of wings, he rose straight up into the air.

  Kate watched him fly. Is he not bonny, Mam? I’d like to fly from my worries. Must be grand. Another thing’s bothering me lately, Mam. Will I go to hell if I die because I married in the Kirk? I’ll need to talk to a priest; a pheasant cannae help or you either, Mam, unless it’s you that’s leading me.

  She smiled. Of course, that was it. The spirit of Mary Kate was telling her what to do.

  ‘I’m away in to the surgery,’ she told Charlie who was cleaning the grate. ‘And I’ll maybe see Bridie and me dad if he’s no at the pit.’

  Charlie straightened up and smiled at her. ‘Great. To tell you the truth, Katie love, I was a wee bit worried that you wouldn’t see the doctor. Away ye go and I’ll have this old range fair gleaming when ye get back and a nice pot of tea waiting.’

  ‘That’ll be grand.’ She put on her hat and, pulling on her gloves, went to the door. ‘If I see your auntie?’

  ‘She’d be that pleased if you was tae tell her. She’d throw away yer father and come up tae take care of you.’

  Kate was not amused. ‘I can take care of myself,’ she said sharply before she could stop the angry words and then felt ashamed of herself. Why she was antagonistic to poor Mrs Murphy she did not know. Everything was so jumbled in her mind. Had Mrs Murphy pushed her into marriage with Charlie and, if she had, was that too bad? Apart from that aspect of marriage, she liked being married to him; he was really a very nice man. Was it that Liam needed someone else? Was she jealous or did she feel a failure, that she wasn’t enough for him. She looked at Charlie and softened. ‘Ach, Charlie,’ she added, ‘if the doctor says everything’s fine and I see my da, then I’ll tell her next.’

  Since Mrs Murphy, who had known for herself without being told, had been knitting small garments for the past month, Charlie found himself praying that his aunt would do nothing to set up Kate’s bristles.

  Liam was down the pit when his eldest daughter visited the village and Bridie and Colm were at school. The visit to the doctor’s office had not been so fraught with difficulty as Kate had feared. Even the examination, with her eyes and teeth tightly clenched, had been over quickly.

  ‘And now, what about the garden, Kate?’ he had asked as she dressed herself again and she had relaxed and told him of her vegetables and her poor hen and the pheasant and her plans for the spring.

  ‘You must let me give you some cuttings and some dahlia tubers. A garden can only support so many plants and you, as a gardener yourself, must know that we gardeners cannot bear to see any of our children die.’

  Gladly she had agreed to call, with Charlie, at the doctor’s house, the following weekend. And no matter what he said about saving cuttings which would otherwise be sent to the compost heap, she would pay for the plants with one of her pies.

  She did not know then how this proud gesture would change her life. In the meantime, however, there was another visit to be made.

  ‘Father O’Malley, my name is Kate Inglis and I’m a lapsed Catholic.’

  The old priest smiled. ‘Come in, Mrs Inglis, you’ll have a cup of tea. With a charming young visitor I can allow myself a biscuit and so you will be doing an old man a favour by permitting him to indulge himself.’

  She followed him into the cold, dark, chapel house and soon found herself pouring out her entire history while he poured tea. He listened quietly, saying nothing, but occasionally nodding as if he understood, or, yes, that was perfectly understandable. They drank the pot of tea; just the way Kate liked it, strong and hot.

  He made no judgements.

  ‘According to the law of the land, Mrs Inglis, you are, of course, legally married. The Church does not recognize your marriage and you can be married in the Catholic Church. If you do not, or if you cannot marry in the Church, you may have your child baptized; for that you do not need the permission of the father. Have you spoken to him, discussed this with him?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then talk to him, my dear. I think that’s the first thing to do. I am always here and you can talk to me at any time. If I can help you I will. It will take a little time – a marriage that is – you have neglected the Sacraments, but, while you were a child, that was not your fault. You must decide what you want and you can and will be welcomed back.’

  She thanked him and left. He had not asked her to pray with him and for that she was grateful; she was not yet ready, but she felt better. It would take time to work things out but she had made up her mind. Her child would be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. What would Charlie say? She would have to talk to him. Baptism . . . getting married again, getting married for the first time is how it would be – according to the Church. Charlie wouldn’t like that idea. They were married, well and truly; that’s what Charlie would say.

  ‘Is this one of them queer like notions women in your condition get, Kate?’ is what Charlie said. ‘We’re married and I have a wee paper to prove it so no more of your havering.’

  ‘According to the law of the land we’re married.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me.’

  How could she reach him? What could she say?

  ‘It’s not good enough for me, Charlie. It’s the laws of God I’m worried about.’

  He wasn’t often angry but he was angry now. ‘What papist mumbo-jumbo is this? I won’t have ony of that nonsense in my home. We were married in the Kirk afore a minister. Are you trying to tell me that that’s no good enough?’

  ‘But I’m a Catholic, Charlie.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘I’ve always been.’

  ‘Never in all the years I’ve known you, or Liam or the others.’

  She told him about the night her mother died. ‘She was buried by a priest, Charlie, but Da wouldnae let us go to Mass after.’

  ‘Good for him; he saw the light. It’s nonsense, Katie, all that stuff, incense and chanting and a man dressed up like an old doll, nonsense, and I won’t have it in my house.’

  She turned to face him. She was frightened now, but surely Liam would protect her. ‘Then maybe you won’t have me in your house either, Charlie,’ she said defiantly. ‘My da will take me in.’

  They stared at one another, both young, both frightened. Charlie capitulated first. ‘You couldn’t bring such shame to me, Kate. Think on my side. You went out to see the doctor and me near sick with the worry because you wouldn’t go afore, like you were ashamed you were having my bairn, and you come back and tell me, not that you’ve seen him and all’s well with you but that you want to become a Roman Catholic.’

&
nbsp; He began to cough as he always did in moments of stress and he tried to push her away as she went to assist him. Kate helped him into the chair by the fire and held a towel to his lips until the spasm passed.

  ‘I’m no ashamed, Charlie. I’m that happy about the baby but I want everything to be right for him. I’ve been to the chapel a few times since my mam died just to sit or to kneel and I feel right there. You haven’t been to the kirk since the day we were wed. One of us should go to church to show the bairn the right way.’

  ‘What will folk say, you going to the chapel?’

  ‘We’ll no hear them, Charlie, and that’s all I want, just to go now and again and think. The priest’s nice; he’s no pushy . . .’

  ‘That’ll make a nice change. Ach, maybe it’s right a mother should go to church. Ministers have aye christened, married and buried us, and that’s aye been enough; that’s what they get paid for.’

  ‘They’d all starve to death, Charlie, if everybody thought like you. Now, have we sorted this or do I go to my da?’

  ‘You’re no still talking about walking out? And let me tell you, Kate Inglis, Liam’s more like to belt ye and send you home where you belong.’

  They both knew that was untrue. Kate sighed and kissed Charlie lightly on the forehead and he sat and waited for her to make their meal.

  ‘That cough’s tired me,’ he said after a while. ‘I think I’ll hae a wee lie down. You wouldnae like tae join me; a rest in the afternoon would be good for you, Kate.’ His eyes told her that she would not be resting.

  She shouldn’t have kissed him. What was it about Charlie? The slightest sign of weakness or affection and he thought she was ready for whatever it was he did in the bed. No, by God, she was not going to put up with it in the afternoon too.

  ‘I’ve this tattie soup tae finish, Charlie. I’ll shout you when it’s ready.’

  ‘I’ll bide here then, Kate, and watch you. I had planned to walk up the road after dinner and see the farmer; there’s maybe something I could do. I was aye good with horses.’