A Mother’s Gift. Pam Weaver
mixed a little of the powder with some cold milk in the cup, then added the boiled milk. She kept her voice level, unflappable, as she asked, ‘What’s the problem?’
‘I don’t know,’ Josephine wailed. ‘And before you tell me it’s just nerves, let me tell you it’s not.’
‘Do you love Mr Malcolm?’ Dottie put the cup and saucer in front of her, still stirring the cocoa.
‘Yes, of course I do!’ She dabbed her eyes again. ‘How can you ask such a thing? It’s just that I don’t … I can’t …’ Her chin wobbled. ‘Oh, Dottie, supposing …’
‘Every young woman is nervous on her wedding night,’ said Dottie sitting down at the table with her. ‘But if you love him …’
‘I do, I do!’
‘And he loves you?’
‘He says he does. He’s so … Oh, Dottie, you’re a married woman …’
Dottie thought back to her own wedding night. All those old wives’ tales her friends teased her with. They only did it because they knew her innocence. What they couldn’t know was that their teasing fed her fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, the dread of being hurt. But back then, all her worries had been blown away by her feelings for Reg. Poor lamb, he’d never known real love. He’d never even known a mother’s love because he’d been brought up in a children’s home. When she saw him waiting at the front of the church on her wedding day, her heart had been full to bursting. Now at last, she would be able to show someone how much she cared and as they’d walked into her honeymoon guesthouse, her one and only thought had been that she would be giving him something he’d never had before. Something very precious …
‘Haven’t you ever?’ she began, but one glance at Josephine’s wide-eyed expression told her what the answer was. Dottie reached out her hand in a gesture of affection. ‘Mr Malcolm knows you’ve never been with anyone else,’ she said gently.
‘But I won’t know what to do,’ Josephine wailed. ‘Supposing I fail him? Supposing being married doesn’t work?’
‘Of course it will work,’ said Dottie. ‘Even if it’s difficult to begin with, you’ll make it work.’ That’s what we women do, she thought to herself. Men pretend everything is fine or go down to the pub, but we get on with it and make it work.
Josephine leaned forward. ‘Dottie …. do you mind? I mean … would you tell me? What happens when you and Reg …? Oh, I shouldn’t ask that, should I? It’s not nice. But what happens …? I mean, exactly …?’
Dottie glanced up at the clock. What should she say? If she told Josephine how things really were between her and Reg, there would be no wedding. Mr Malcolm seemed a nice enough man. A bit of a chinless wonder as Aunt Bessie would say, but he clearly loved her. Reg had been good and kind in the beginning. Her wedding night had been a little … rushed … but she knew he loved her really. It was only the war that changed him. All that time he was away, she’d dreamed of what it would be like to have him back home again. It wasn’t his fault things weren’t the same. Aunt Bessie was right. She always said, ‘War does terrible things to people.’
‘Dottie?’
Josephine’s voice brought her back to the present. She leaned towards her employer’s daughter as if she were about to whisper a secret. She wouldn’t spoil it for her. She wouldn’t tell her how it was, she’d tell her how she’d always dreamed it would be.
Two
When at last Dottie walked outside into the cool night air, Dr Fitzgerald came out through the French windows.
‘I’ll take you home, Dottie.’
She was startled. ‘There’s no need, sir. I’m quite happy to walk.’
‘Nonsense!’ he cried. ‘You’ve got a big day tomorrow. You’ll need all your strength. Hop in.’
He was holding the passenger door of his Ford Prefect open as if she were a lady.
‘Everything set for the reception?’ he said as he sat down in the driver’s seat.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’re an absolute marvel, Dottie.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m only doing what anyone else would do.’ But in the secret darkness of the car, she allowed herself a small smile. Yes, let him appreciate her. It was only right.
Reg still wasn’t back from the Jolly Farmer when she got indoors. It was unusual for him to be out this late on a weeknight. Still, he had a half-day off tomorrow. He’d be back home at lunchtime.
She put the kettle on a low gas while she pinned up her hair and put on a hairnet. By the time she’d finished, the overfilled kettle began to spit water so that it coughed rather than whistled. She filled the teapot and sat at the kitchen table. It was lovely and quiet. The only sound in the room was the tick-tock of the clock. Then, all at once, there was a knock at the kitchen window and she jumped a mile high. ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me, Reg.’
Dottie pulled back the curtain. ‘Oh, Reg!’ she gasped clutching her chest. ‘You scared the life out of me. What are you doing knocking on the window?’
‘Come here, Dot. I’ve got something to show you.’
Remembering how he’d grabbed her when he came home earlier that evening, her heart beat a little faster. She shivered apprehensively. ‘I’m very tired, Reg.’
‘It won’t take a minute.’
What was he up to now? And what was that under his arm? Slipping her feet back into her shoes, she made a grab for her coat hanging on the nail on the back of the door. As she lifted it, her apron hanging underneath swung sideways and the pocket gaped open to reveal Reg’s creased-up letter. Oh flip! The sight of it made her stomach go over. She’d forgotten all about it.
‘Hurry up,’ he shouted from the other side of the door.
Dottie grabbed the apron, rolled it up and stuffed it into the drawer. ‘Just let me get my coat on.’
As she stepped outside into the cool night air, whatever he was holding under his arm moved. Dottie cried out with surprise.
‘Take a look at this!’ he said, flinging the jacket back.
It was a small piglet. The animal wriggled and squealed.
‘Where on earth did you get that?’ she gasped.
‘I won it,’ he laughed. ‘Tom Prior persuaded me to have a go at skittles and I was the only one who got them all down with one throw. I got the first prize. The pig.’
‘But you never win anything,’ Dottie said.
‘That’s what I bloody said,’ Reg agreed. ‘But this time I did.’
‘But what are we going to do with it?’
Reg shrugged his shoulders. The pig protested loudly so he covered it with his coat again.
‘Well, we’ll have to put it in the chicken run for now,’ she said. ‘They’re all shut up for the night. Has it been fed?’
He shrugged again. ‘Shouldn’t think so.’
‘There’s some potato left over from last night, and some peelings in the bucket waiting to go on the compost heap. I’ll do a bit of gravy and you can give it that.’
‘If we fattened him up,’ he said, leading the way down the garden to the chicken run, ‘he’d be a nice bit of bacon by Christmas.’
They put the pig in the chicken run and, while Reg pulled an old piece of corrugated iron over the tree stump and the edge of the fence to give it a bit of shelter if it rained, Dottie ran back indoors to get some food.