He stood for a moment without making any move to enter the house. He was daft, a nutter. Why else would he let the very qualities which made her so special come between them time and time again? True she was bonny and warm and kind, but to his knowledge she had never so much as looked at another man, so why did he allow the inner questioning and doubt to get to him? Her work, first for the firework factory and then the clothing enterprise, had been to benefit them as a family, he knew that at heart. And where would they be without it? Would he rather they were still stuck in Brooke Street living hand to mouth just so he could say he was her provider?
David couldn’t truthfully give himself the answer to that question because it would have been yes. Instead he reiterated for the thousandth time how he hated seeing Carrie work every minute God sent, her hands often knotted with cramp at the end of the day and her eyes sore. He made a sound low in his throat which could have signified anything.
Just as he was about to open the front door, he noticed Matthew come round the corner with several of his pals and it was clear from the way the boy was walking that he was holding something wrapped in his jumper.
‘Da!’
Matthew’s cry held an element of relief in it, and as David waited for the crowd of small lads to reach him, he noticed how tall Matthew was getting. It hadn’t struck him before, seeing the boy every day, but he was a good head above his pals who were all about the same age. When the group was still a few yards away, David called, ‘What have you got there?’
‘It’s a baby rabbit, Da.’ As Matthew reached him, the boy unfolded the jumper just enough to reveal a tiny ball of fluff with a quivering nose and whiskers. ‘Mr Dent was up by the old quarries an’ his Jack Russell had gone down a hole and brought up the mother an’ all the little ’uns. It’d killed them all ’cept this one an’ so I grabbed it quick.’
‘The dog bit him,’ one of his friends supplied.
‘It bit you?’
‘Just a nip.’ Matthew waved the concern away, his focus wholly on the baby rabbit. ‘Can we keep it, Da? It’ll die without its mam.’
David glanced at the insignificant little scrap. Matthew had been after having a pet of his own for some time now but Carrie wasn’t too keen on the idea, mainly because she suspected it was a whim which would burn itself out once the boy had to feed, clean and take care of an animal. ‘I’m not sure it’s old enough to survive on its own, Matt.’
‘But if it can?’
‘Who’s going to look after it? And by that I don’t just mean stroking it and giving it some food now and again.’
‘I will, I promise. I promise, Da.’
David stared down into the intense little face, his brows raised sceptically.
‘Please, Da. I saved it and if I take it back it’ll die.’
It was time the boy had some responsibility, David thought, and the way this had happened, with Matthew having, as he’d just said, saved the little creature, he was sure Carrie would be amenable. ‘I’ll talk to your mam, all right? And if she’s happy about it we’ll see about building a hutch and a pen in the yard where it can exercise. But I’m holding you to your promise. Pets need time and attention.’
‘Aye, I know.’ Matthew’s face had relaxed. If his da was going to talk to his mam it’d be all right.
‘Come on then. Say cheerio to your pals.’ David opened the front door and stood aside for Matthew to step into the narrow hall in front of him. Then he called, ‘Hello there.’
‘Hello there, he says.’ Carrie appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She was only half joking when she said, ‘I’ve kept dinner going for more than a couple of hours past when it should’ve been eaten, and all he says is, hello there. I thought you said it was going to be a quick word with your da.’
She hadn’t noticed that Matthew had something in his bunched up jumper, and as the boy sidled past her and went into the kitchen, David said, ‘Sorry, lass. Walter was with Da and we got talking. He was a bit down the night.’
‘Walter or your da?’
He could have said both of them. ‘Me da. Over that business with the deputy this morning. Mind, we had to talk round the trees and up the Khyber Pass before he’d let us raise it with him, but we got there in the end and he saw sense. He’ll make it right with Tom in his own way now.’
In the kitchen, David placed the box of vegetables on the work table next to the sink. Matthew had seated himself at the kitchen table and was as quiet as a mouse, his big eyes fixed on his parents.
‘Go and wash your hands, Matthew.’ Carrie had already begun to ladle thick beef stew and dumplings on to three plates at the side of the range but she turned as she spoke, suddenly conscious of the boy’s stillness. Her voice changed as she said, ‘What have you got there?’ Her eyes were on the jumper now resting on his bony knees.
‘Ah, now we want a little word with you about that.’ David smiled as he spoke, his eyes drinking in her peaches and cream skin and glowing hair, the soft mouth which even when it was trying to be stern, like now, was inordinately kissable. ‘Go and get a cardboard box, Matt. There’s one in the privy.’
Matthew took the hint to disappear and scuttled off without a word, whereupon David walked over to his wife, took the ladle out of her hand and drew both her hands to his chest. ‘He’s rescued a baby rabbit from someone’s dog which had killed the mother and the rest of the brood. He wants to keep it and I think we should let him.’
Carrie stared up at her husband. One of the reasons - maybe the main one, she acknowledged silently - she had hesitated about getting a pet for Matthew was because of the confrontations between her son and David which would occur if the boy didn’t follow through on his promises to look after whatever he had. She knew she was too easy with Matthew at times but he was a good lad at heart, although she had to admit in the last twelve months he’d begun to be something of a handful. He was so different to David, that was the thing. This hadn’t been apparent when he was young, but lately . . . But she was glad David was championing the rabbit for Matthew; she’d just have to make sure the boy kept up to scratch with cleaning its hutch and so on. This last thought prompted her to say, ‘What about a hutch?’
‘I’ll let him help me make one. It’d be nice to do something together, just me and him.’
The words brought a measure of gratitude along with some sadness, but her main feeling was one of sick panic. It had been some eighteen months ago, when Alec had come to David, cap in hand, that things had started to change between her husband and son, and Matthew had begun to challenge David’s authority now and again. She had prayed David wouldn’t be taken in by his brother’s apparent desire to eat humble pie at the time, but Alec was clever. He’d gone on about Margaret’s miscarriages and the difficult time they were having, how he had come to realise family was everything and bitterly regretted his estrangement from his youngest brother. David was so lucky to have a good wife and bonny child like Matthew, Alec had said wistfully. He’d give his eye teeth for the same. When Alec had gone, David had been very quiet for an hour or so, before saying, ‘He’s changed, you know. I never thought I’d see the day, but all this trouble with Margaret has knocked the stuffing out of him, taught him a lesson. What do you think?’
She had told him what she thought, and he had looked at her in surprise. ‘Easy, lass, easy. It’s not like you not to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.’ She had realised then that she had to be careful. And Alec’s behaviour had confirmed the suspicion she’d had for some time that he was aware Matthew was his child.
Before that day she could have counted the number of times she had seen Alec and Margaret on both hands, and those had been unnerving enough. To see Alec doing the benevolent uncle act and monopolising Matthew had given her the jitters for days afterwards. And she had been right to be wary.
She reached up to touch David’s cheek and said quietly, ‘Why don’t you go and tell him he can keep the rabbit while I finish dishing up the dinner?’
‘Aye, all right, lass.’ He drew her into him, kissing her hard on the mouth, before muttering into her hair, ‘You smell of apple blossom and strawberries, do you know that? Good enough to eat.’
‘Go on with you.’ She smiled at him, pushing him with her hand, but once he had disappeared into the backyard the smile faded. Was she the only one who realised the significance of Alec’s timing? Didn’t anyone else think it a little odd that the very week Margaret had been told by the top consultant her father had called in that it was unlikely she would ever carry a child full term, Alec had made peace overtures to David? But it was best they didn’t. Whatever, Alec had set out to buy Matthew’s affection eighteen months ago, playing the fond brother with David even as he furthered his aim to take David’s place in Matthew’s heart by indulging the boy shamelessly, and always putting David in the position of a killjoy. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
‘Oh, Mam! Mam!’ A little whirlwind burst into the kitchen as Matthew raced across and hugged her waist. Carrie smiled at David who had followed the boy into the kitchen. ‘I’ll look after it and clean it and everything, and me an’ Da are going to get some wood for the hutch after dinner.’
‘Are you now?’ She smiled down into the handsome little face, the heavily lashed hazel eyes almost too beautiful for a boy and the rich brown hair just a couple of shades darker than her own.
‘We’re calling him Nibbles, aren’t we, Da?’
‘Aye, Nibbles it is.’
‘And we’re making the hutch with two compartments, a bedroom and a living room.’
‘Lucky Nibbles,’ Carrie said lightly, her mind registering that Matthew was smiling Alec’s smile. Not for the first time she thanked the Almighty that her son’s colouring was so different to his natural father’s. In spite of all her worry, Matthew had inherited the McDarmount fair complexion and her hair; his eyes, although flecked with green, had enough brown in them for that colour to dominate. He resembled Billy more than anyone else, although she could see Alec’s mouth more and more as the boy grew, and a certain devil-may-care tilt to Matthew’s head of late that had caused her heart to come up into her mouth. He was changing fast, there was no doubt about it, and she lived in constant dread that someone sometime would point out the likeness between Matthew and his Uncle Alec.
‘Can I bring him into the kitchen while I eat me dinner, Mam?’
‘No you cannot.’
It was firm and brooked no argument and David laughed, ruffling the boy’s hair. ‘Nice try, son.’
Why couldn’t it always be like this? Carrie pushed Matthew towards his chair and turned to the range. She would give anything for Alec to be out of their lives and gone for good.
Matthew bolted his dinner down, squirming about on his seat and watching every mouthful David took. As David finished his last forkful, Matthew said, ‘Can we go now, Mam?’ as though he and David were the same age.
Carrie smiled, shaking her head. ‘Wait a minute.’
‘Oh,
Mam.
’
Carrie walked across to the pantry. It was Matthew’s birthday the next day and unknown to him she had baked a separate little cake when she had made his birthday cake, decorating it exactly like the bigger one. She said, ‘Here, this is a happy-the-day-before-your-birthday cake.’
‘Thanks, Mam.’ Grinning from ear to ear, Matthew demolished the cake in ten seconds flat before sliding off his chair and pulling at David’s arm. ‘Come on, Da.’
‘Matthew?’ Carrie’s voice was serious and brought the pair of them to a halt just as Matthew opened the back door. ‘The rabbit isn’t a birthday present, not really. You do understand it’s a live creature and will be depending on you to care for it? The hutch will need cleaning out even if we’re knee deep in snow.’
The brown head nodded solemnly. ‘I know, Mam.’
‘Can we go now, Mam?’ David asked gravely.
Carrie wrinkled her nose. ‘You’re as bad as each other, you two,’ she said, flapping her hand at them, but again, once the back door had closed, she stood quite still for some moments before starting to clear the table.
When she had washed the dishes in the tiny scullery off the kitchen, Carrie walked through to the front room. This was not set out with a stiff three-piece suite, china cabinet and aspidistra, as most people would have expected considering there was only one child in the family and no lodgers to necessitate the room being used as a bedroom. It was Carrie’s work room. The kitchen was the family room with a table, four hardbacked chairs, David’s armchair and a small saddle with thick flocked cushions along one wall. It was here the three of them ate, sat in the evenings, washed and generally lived.