Authors: Doris Davidson
***
Word count 1799
Has never been tried out.
Catherine Walker wrestled with the road map, her annoyance fuelled by her frustration at being lost.
She had thought she could find Gowanbank with her eyes closed, but obviously she couldn’t - not even with them open. Surely the place hadn’t changed all that much in twenty years? She’d been depending on the peace and quiet of her childhood holidays - a trip down Memory Lane - to help her to make up her mind about Donald Robson, but …
‘Can I be of any help?’ The voice came through the half open window, and she looked up into the smiling face of a man with a bicycle.
‘I was looking for Gowanbank,’ she explained, ‘but I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere. I remembered there was a church and a manse at the foot of quite a steep hill, and from the top I’d see the farm at the other side. But I can’t even find the hill.’
‘You haven’t gone wrong,’ the man grinned, pointing straight ahead. ‘There’s your church and the manse, and there’s your hill.’
‘No, it can’t be - that hill’s not steep enough, and the church is too small … and the house.’
He laughed loudly at this. ‘Your memory’s playing tricks on you, Katie.’
Katie? It was years since anyone had called her that, so she looked up into his face, trying to place him. The unruly red hair and the deep dimple in his chin told her instantly who he was. ‘It’s Billy Raffan, isn’t it?’ she smiled. ‘You haven’t changed much.’
‘You didn’t recognise me at first, though.’
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ she defended herself. ‘I thought I was in the wrong district.’
‘You’ve changed quite a bit, Katie.’ His smile was slightly rueful now. ‘You look really smart and sophisticated, like a successful career woman … or a model?’
Pleased though she was by the compliment, she hastened to put him right. ‘Not a model, but yes a successful career woman. I’m head buyer in the gown department of Bannerman’s in Edinburgh.’
He gave no sign of being pleased for her, but maybe he hadn’t done so well with his life. It would be best not to ask him what he did. ‘It’s been great seeing you again, Billy, but I’ll have to be getting on.’
She made to switch on the ignition, but his hand didn’t move from the window.
‘Is somebody expecting you?’
‘No, I just wanted to see Gowanbank again - and have some peace and quiet.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He withdrew his hand at once. ‘I’ve been disturbing your solitude.’
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean that. It’s … um … I’ve a most important decision to make, and I can’t seem to find the time in Edinburgh to think things through properly.’
‘I understand. Off you go, then, and good luck, whatever you decide.’
‘Thanks, Billy.’
She drove on, past the little country church with its manse tucked by it side, both of which she had remembered as much larger and more imposing, over the small hill that she had thought so high and so steep when she was a young girl. From the top, however, just as she remembered, she could see the farm of Gowanbank, and went slowly down towards it, savouring the memories.
What happy times she’d had here, all those years ago; helping Uncle Jamie, watching the animals and being able to know each horse and cow by name. Happy, carefree days, until Dad died of pneumonia when she was fourteen, and there was no car and no money for her to have holidays.
Almost at the farm, where Uncle Jamie had been grieve, she turned left, to see where he and Auntie Aggie had lived, but the row of cottar houses seemed to have shrunk, too. She was bitterly disappointed. It hadn’t been a good idea, trying to recapture the past. Things were never the same when you went back. Her aunt and uncle were both gone, years ago, and she wouldn’t know any of the present farm workers - except Billy Raffan, of course.
She continued her journey along the rough road she remembered so well, at least it hadn’t changed, until she reached the haven she had subconsciously been seeking. This was where she had come in the old days when she had wanted to be alone to sit and dream. There was a sort of entrance through the trees, just a gap between them really, and she drew the car to a halt on the mossy grass verge. Walking over the springy turf, sprinkled with cones as it had always been, her heart was uplifted by the old familiar smell of firs. She soon found the cluster of tree stumps fashioning a sort of chair in the clearing, and sat down to decide her future.
Her mind refused to be harnessed for quite a long time, however, recalling the games she used to play with the other children, including Billy, who had lived two houses along from her aunt and uncle. Billy had always defended her when the others laughed at her strange city way of talking. They had run barefoot - ‘barfit’ they called it - for the whole of the school holidays, the entire length of her stay there, and she could still remember how upset she’d been when her parents came to take her back to Edinburgh. Catherine abruptly reined in her wandering thoughts. This was not why she had come here. The burning issue still had to be decided. Was it only last night that Donald Robson had given her the ultimatum?
‘I can’t allow you to carry on working after we’re married, of course,’ Donald announced.
‘But I need my work. I need the excitement of travelling, and meeting other people.’ Catherine looked earnestly at her fiance across the restaurant table.
‘If you really loved me, you wouldn’t need any other excitement.’ His tone was firm, but cold. ‘Being the wife of a professor should be enough, and we certainly won’t need the money.’
‘It’s not the money, David. I can’t see myself acting the little woman waiting for her man to come home every evening.’
‘It wouldn’t be like that. You’ll have plenty to keep you occupied - organising and entertaining - and being invited out in return. There are several other wives who would be delighted to be your friends. They have bridge mornings and …’
Catherine interrupted angrily. ‘I don’t want to twiddle my thumbs and play at being a wife, Donald. Other married woman have their own careers, and they manage to cope.’
‘They don’t have luxury holidays in New York and Paris twice a year on their own.’ His lips were compressed in a thin line now. His eyes were icy.
‘They’re not holiday trips, and you know it,’ she said, calmly although she could feel her temper rising. ‘I go to fashion shows because I have to know the current styles if I’m to do my job properly. You are being totally unreasonable.’
His handsome face softened suddenly. ‘Darling, I love you, but I really can’t have my wife working. If you think about it objectively, you’ll see that I’m not being unreasonable.’
Biting back a hasty retort, she sat back in her seat to study him. His brown eyes were begging her to give in, his dark wavy hair was just that little bit ruffled, one of the things she loved about him. She knew that, in spite of his position, he was insecure, that he needed her backing to give him confidence in himself. She’d been bolstering his ego every since she first met him at a party, two years ago. There had been instant attraction between them, but she had been the one to invite him to a concert when her girlfriend let her down. She had been the one to suggest that they made it a weekly arrangement. She had found it really difficult to convince Donald that she loved him. She sighed now. ‘I’ll think it over.’
‘Catherine.’ His voice had softened. ‘You will have to decide one way or the other. Your career or … me. You can’t have both.’
Irritation with him was setting in, but she held herself in check. ‘I said I’ll think it over.’
‘I want to know as soon as possible, Catherine.’ His tone was icy. ‘We can’t go on like this any longer.’
She took a deep breath. ‘We were stocktaking all last week, so I’m due a day off. I’ll take it tomorrow, and I’ll go to a little place I know where I can think this out properly, with no distractions.’
‘If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have to think,’ he muttered.
‘I do love you, Donald, but I had to sacrifice quite a lot to be where I am today, and it seems ridiculous to throw it all away now. Maybe I’ll see things in perspective once I’m away from Edinburgh, though I can’t promise what my answer will be. I do promise to think it over really carefully, and I’ll phone you in the evening.’
Slowly, with the silence around her being broken only by the occasional chirping of a bird, she came to the conclusion that Donald had been right. She couldn’t love him as deeply as she had thought, otherwise she’d have given up her career willingly and been proud to spend the rest of her life looking after him. Giving in to him; was that more like it?
Her decision made, her heart wasn’t broken at the prospect of never seeing him again. It was Donald who would have to face up to being on his own. Her heart was much lighter as she made her way back to the road, and she was pleasantly surprised to see Billy Raffan sitting on the grass beside her car, his bicycle propped against a tree.
He jumped up when he saw her. ‘I thought this was where you’d be, and I knew I was right when I saw the car. My mother sent me to invite you to have some dinner with us - though I suppose you call it lunch nowadays?’
‘I still call it dinner,’ she grinned, recalling many arguments with Donald Robson about her sticking so stubbornly to her own vocabulary, lower middle class he called it, ‘and it’s very thoughtful of her. I hope you haven’t been waiting here long.’
‘Not long.’ His smile was still as boyish as it had always been. ‘I allowed you an hour to do your thinking in peace and quiet. I hope that was enough?’
‘Yes, I’ve done all the thinking I need.’
‘Right then, follow me.’ He lifted his bicycle and set it upright.
‘Don’t you still live in the same house?’
‘No.’ His laugh was teasing. ‘Just follow me.’
They passed the cottar houses, passed Gowanbank Farm, up the hill and down the other side, and then he turned left along the narrow track leading to the church.
When he stopped outside the manse, Catherine came out of her car and said, accusingly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you worked here?’
‘You never asked.’
‘What do you do? Gardener?’
‘Gardener, odd job man, whatever.’
His twinkling eyes made her suddenly suspicious. ‘You’re not a gardener at all, are you?’
He burst out laughing. ‘You’d never have expected me to be a minister, would you, Katie?’
‘You’re the minister?’ she gasped. ‘No, I’d never have dreamt of that. You were one of the liveliest, funniest boys amongst the whole lot, Billy.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t call you Billy now, though. It would be disrespectful.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Mother still calls me Billy, and half my congregation. And I’ll keep calling you Katie, even if you’re probably known as Catherine now.’
She nodded her agreement to that. ‘But I feel Katie here.’
‘Good. Come on then, Mum’s waiting.’
‘Mind and put your bike in the shed, Billy,’ was Mrs Raffan’s first remark, ‘and bring in some coal.’
‘She orders me about like a skivvy,’ he laughed, joking, but went out to do as he’d been told.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ the small white-haired woman went on. ‘I didna believe Billy when he said he’d seen you. You were only a bairn when you were last at Gowanbank.’
‘I was only fourteen,’ Catherine said, pulling a face as she added, ‘twenty years ago. I’ll be thirty-four in a couple of weeks.’
‘Still just a bairn. You’d been surprised to ken Billy was a minister now?’
‘I could hardly believe it. He was always the wild one, the one playing tricks on everybody else. I thought he’d have gone in for farm work, like his dad.’ She hoped that Billy’s mother wouldn’t think she was belittling him.
‘He was never keen on that. He aye said he wanted to be a minister, from the time he was about fifteen. He was real clever, and got through the Divinity degree with no bother. His first charge was in Ayrshire.’
The woman smiled sadly. ‘I was pleased his father lived to see him ordained, for he died just a month after.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Catherine had liked Will Raffan, a big, bluff man, with reddish hair like his son.
‘Aye.’ Mrs Raffan was silent for a moment, then said brightly, ‘Billy had been in his first kirk five year when old Mr McIntyre died. You’ll mind on him, Katie? He’d been minister here for near forty year.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember him bellowing out his sermons when I was a kid. I was absolutely terrified of him.’
‘But he was a good man, for a’ that, a kind man, obliging. He went out of his way to do things for his parishioners, and the kirk session didna fancy the idea of a stranger coming upsetting a’body. The upshot was, they sent two men to hear my Billy preaching and they liked him, but they asked him up here so the congregation could judge for theirselves. And he got the call to this kirk.’
‘That must have been a very proud day for you.’
‘It was that, and I was even prouder when Billy asked me asked me to come and keep house for him. I’d been stopping with my sister since my man died and I’d to get out o’ the cottar house.’
‘She keeps me in order as well as the house.’ Billy had come in with the filled coal scuttle.
Mrs Raffan laughed with delight. ‘You need it, lad. Go and wash your hands afore your dinner.’
He made a face but disappeared again, and his mother turned to Catherine. ‘I’d have been fine pleased if he’d taken a wife,’ she confided, ‘but he never seemed to bother much with the lassies.’
‘As long as he’s got you, he’ll be well looked after.’
‘But he’ll no aye have me, and I’d like to see him settled. You ken, Katie, I used to think he’d a soft spot for you, when you used to come here for your holidays.’
Catherine’s face flushed. She’d had quite a soft spot for Billy Raffan when she was fourteen, but circumstances had nipped that in the bud. She hadn’t even given him a thought over the years.
‘Right, Mum,’ the minister said, when he came back. ‘I’m sure Katie’s hungry by this time.’
‘I was waiting for you afore I dished up. If you want to wash your hands as well, lass, the bathroom’s through there, second door on your left.’ Mrs Raffan stood up, and Catherine obediently followed the pointing finger.