Troubled Waters

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Women's Fiction; Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Glasgow, 1961. At the age of twenty-one, Alison Craig lives a quiet, unassuming, but boring life. When her father died and her mother became bedridden with arthritis, Alison was forced to drop out of university and start working in a biscuit factory. While her colleagues and friends are all married or getting engaged, Alison still lives at home with her ailing mother while courting her childhood sweetheart, Bob, when she is able to leave the house once a week. But then Michael Boyce, the handsome new English doctor, comes into Alison's life and sweeps her off her feet. New feelings of love and passion excite her, but she should have known that there would be obstacles to overcome before she could be truly happy. Jealousy, insecurity and mistrust plague the young couple, but will they ever be able to see past them and find happiness together at last?

Release date: January 30, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

Glasgow, 1961

Bob stood in the porch, his arms round Alison’s shoulders, his face against her soft, red-gold hair.

‘Couldn’t you come with me, darling?’ he asked. ‘It’s sure to be a good do and I won’t feel like going without you.’

Alison withdrew from the comforting presence of his arms and shivered slightly in the night air. They had just come home from their weekly night out together.

‘I wish I could, Bob. But I don’t think Mrs Cuthbert will come on a Wednesday because of her children. I can’t leave Mother alone, you know that!’

‘I suppose so,’ Bob said, disappointment and uncertainty mixed in the tone of his voice. ‘Though sometimes I wonder if Mrs Craig wouldn’t be all right on her own. After all, we don’t have to go till about nine and by then she’d have had her tea and gone to bed.’

‘But suppose she has one of her attacks?’

It was always the same, Bob thought. In many ways, the unselfish part of Alison’s nature, which was one of the many reasons he loved her, was also their undoing. They could go out only once a week when a neighbour came in to sit with Alison’s mother, and once a week for a few hours isn’t much when you wanted to spend all your spare time with the girl you loved. And there just did not seem to be any hope on the horizon that things would improve.

Ever since Mr Craig had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack, Mrs Craig had lost her own good health. She had painful attacks of arthritis and spent more time in bed than out of it. Of course, it was three years now since Alison’s father had departed. Alison had been seventeen at the time and just about to start at Glasgow University, but of course she’d given up the idea of becoming a teacher and had left school to start work in a biscuit factory. Someone had to replace her father as the breadwinner and there wasn’t anyone else when Mrs Craig collapsed.

‘Dr McFaddon says she’ll get well again soon,’ Alison had told Bob. ‘He says the shock started it, and of course she isn’t young, like your mother, Bob.’

He’d gone on to university without Alison and had quite a good job now as an engineer just outside Glasgow. He was earning good money and there was really no reason why he and Alison shouldn’t be married – except that so far Alison wouldn’t consent even to an engagement.

‘Do you honestly love me?’ he asked now, drawing her back into his arms. ‘Really?’

‘Of course I do!’ Alison cried. ‘You know there’s never been anyone else in my life … not since I was fourteen and first saw you. Whyever should you doubt it?’

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that her love and care for her mother so outweighed everything else that it left no room for loving him, but the words seemed childish and resentful and he didn’t want to add to her burdens by accusing her of neglecting him. Old Mrs Craig made enough demands on her time and attention.

‘Well, you’d better be getting in, I suppose,’ he said doubtfully, unwilling to let her go but somehow feeling the futility of trying to keep her there on her doorstep.

‘Good night, Bob dear, and thanks for a lovely evening,’ Alison said, reaching up to receive his last goodnight kiss. ‘I’m sorry about Wednesday – the dance, I mean. I will ask Mrs Cuthbert but I daren’t hold out too much hope.’

She went indoors and trod softly across the carpeted hall, knowing her way in the darkness. But quiet as she was, Mrs Craig heard her and called down:

‘That you, Alison?’

‘Yes, Mother. I was just going to make a hot drink.’

‘Bring it up here, dear, and tell me about your evening. I can’t sleep, anyway.’

Alison went into the kitchen and stood by the old gas cooker watching the milk as it heated. She felt unaccountably depressed. What was wrong with her tonight? She didn’t feel a bit like going into her mother’s room as she usually did for a last little gossip. Somehow she wanted to be alone, to try to fathom out what was wrong between her and Bob. Of course, he was disappointed about the dance on Wednesday. But she really did mean to try to get Mrs Cuthbert. And if she couldn’t? Maybe Mother would not mind so much, just for a few hours, she thought. I’ll ask her.

She couldn’t get it out of her mind what Beryl James had said last week. Beryl, like herself, worked at the biscuit factory and although they were so very different in type they were still quite good friends.

‘Take a tip from me, Alison, and keep a tighter rein on that young fellow of yours. I saw him in the pub last week with ever such a good-looking blonde.’

She’d just laughed at the time, but when she’d asked Bob about it, at first he’d denied he’d even been there. Then he admitted it.

‘I don’t know who she was, Alison, and that’s the truth. I just picked her out of the crowd, you know the way all the fellows do who haven’t got regular girls. It didn’t mean a thing, honest. Besides, what harm is there? It wasn’t as if I’d broken a date with you. I can’t stay home every evening just because you have to!’

‘I don’t even expect you to,’ Alison said truthfully. ‘I asked you only out of curiosity. It was only when you said you hadn’t been there at all that I began to wonder what had been going on. Besides,’ she lifted her head proudly, ‘I’ve no exclusive right to you any more than you have to me.’

That’s why he’d kissed her more passionately than ever before – a kiss which had frightened and disturbed her.

‘I’m in love with you, Alison, you and no one else. I’ve got to see more of you. Can’t you possibly come to the dance with me on Wednesday?’

She would go. Bob wanted her to and it was time she tried to give him a little more attention. If only …

She mixed in the cocoa and carried the two cups up to her mother’s room.

Mrs Craig was in her late fifties. She was still a nice-looking woman, grey-haired, with Alison’s lovely green eyes. Only the strained, unhappy expression on her face spoiled the pleasant first impression one might otherwise have had. She eyed her daughter with a question behind the actual words:

‘Enjoy yourself, darling?’ What she was really thinking was: ‘They haven’t got engaged yet, have they? Alison wouldn’t – not without telling me first.’

‘Yes, thank you, Mother,’ the girl said, putting down the tray and walking over to the curtained window. It wasn’t a luxurious room but it was warm and comfortable. Mrs Craig spent a lot of time there.

‘Mother!’ Alison’s voice was strained and the older woman looked at the slim young back anxiously. Was this the moment she so dreaded coming at last? ‘Mother, Bob wants me to go to a dance on Wednesday. It’s … it’s rather important to him. And I’d like to go – that is if you wouldn’t mind Mrs Cuthbert coming in.’

Mrs Craig leant back against her pillows, relaxing.

‘Why, of course not, dear. Though I don’t think Mrs Cuthbert will come. You know she said quite definitely she can manage only Saturdays.’

Alison turned suddenly and faced her mother, her eyes full of appeal.

‘Mother, if she can’t come, would you mind if … if I went all the same? I wouldn’t be late and I could tuck you up first and see you had everything you wanted.’

Mrs Craig looked down at the hands folded in front of her on the sheet. Her mind was racing with questions. Alison had never suggested leaving her alone before. Was this a prelude to other evenings? Why was it so important to her and to Bob? Was an engagement in the wind after all? Not yet, she prayed silently; please not yet!

‘It wouldn’t be a regular thing,’ Alison said in a tight, constrained voice, as if reading her mother’s thought. ‘Just this once, Mother?’

I mustn’t be selfish, I really mustn’t! the older woman told herself. Just once …

‘All right, dear! I’m sure I’ll be able to manage. Besides, I haven’t had one of my attacks for quite a long while. Maybe I’m really getting better.’

Alison hurried over to the bed, her eyes shining now, her cheeks flushed.

‘Thank you, Mother,’ she said, bending to kiss the grey hair. ‘I promise I won’t be late back, and Bob says we needn’t go till nine. I could ask him here for supper first, couldn’t I? Then we can all three have a few hours together before we leave. You’d like that.’

‘Yes, dear. You’re a good girl and a wonderful comfort to me. I don’t know what I would have done after your father died if—’

‘Mother, don’t, please. You’ll only upset yourself. And I don’t do anything any other daughter wouldn’t do. You can’t help being ill.’

‘It’s such a strain on you, dear; I often think you ought to marry Bob and go away and lead your own life.’

‘Mother, you know I’d never leave you, never! As for marrying Bob – well, one day, I suppose, we will marry. But it needn’t be for a long time yet. We aren’t even engaged.’

‘But you are in love with each other?’

Alison flushed in sudden shyness.

‘Yes, we are in love. There’s never been anyone but Bob – you know that, Mother. But even if – when – we do marry, I shan’t go away. Bob knows that. He wouldn’t ask me to. You’d live with us. Let’s not talk about it any more.’

‘All right, dear.’ Mrs Craig accepted the cup of cocoa, now cooled, and a moment later Alison rose and said she was going to bed.

In her own small bedroom, sparsely furnished and rather cold, she undressed as quickly as possible and climbed in between the sheets. Her spirits were high yet she felt exhausted, as if she had been in a battle with her mother.

What a silly thing to think! she told herself sharply. Mother and I understand each other – we never row. I ought to have asked her before now if she’d mind my leaving her. Somehow it seems to have become the accepted thing over the years since Father died that I never would go out except on Saturdays. Father …

Her thoughts centred on the man who had once filled her life – a big jovial red-haired Scotsman who had laughed and joked and boomed his way through life, making friends but never money, loved by all who met him. He’d been the pivot round which they had revolved and Alison had adored him.

Perhaps it was just as well she’d had her mother to care for afterwards or she might have felt his sudden death much more keenly herself. As it was, with her mother completely collapsed from shock and grief, she had had no time for private sorrows. Suddenly all the responsibilities were on her shoulders. Mr Craig had left them nothing but debts, and by the time these were cleared by the sale of some of their better pieces of furniture, it was clear that she’d have to abandon the idea of going to university and get a job.

So the years had gone by, in retrospect, terribly fast. She was twenty-one – a woman now. And she felt older. It was only with other girls that she felt younger. They all seemed to be so much more sophisticated than she was. All the girls in the factory were either engaged or married. They led hectic lives, working all day, out nearly every night either at the cinema or dancing. Compared with them, Alison felt young and inexperienced and their gossip about their different experiences confused and embarrassed her. She always tried to avoid their confidences and mostly now they didn’t discuss their private lives with her or near her. But they all liked her, believing her to be somehow different from them. They respected her, too, for the completely unselfish way she devoted herself to her invalid mother, even while, among themselves, they spoke of Mrs Craig as ‘a selfish old besom!’

Alison loved her mother. Her love was always ringed with pity, for she realized that with the death of her father there was nothing left in life to bring her mother happiness. She had vowed to herself on her eighteenth birthday that anything she could ever do to make her mother’s life easier she would do it, no matter what the cost to herself.

It did not occur to Alison that she herself had set the pattern of their lives. Perhaps if Mrs Craig had had more to do immediately following her husband’s death she would have got over the shock and pulled herself together. But there were no young children to force her out of her well of grief – only Alison, who already had taken up the reins and was running everything smoothly.

She sank back into her chasm of sorrow and allowed her daughter to plan as she wished. The more Alison did, the more she let her do. For beyond everything else Alison was efficient. She ran the house, cleaned it, cooked, kept her job and cared for her mother without any seeming effort, and she never complained.

‘I’m happy doing these things for you, Mother,’ the girl had said, and Mrs Craig believed her.

But Alison couldn’t sleep that night … couldn’t, because her mind and heart were restless with a strange, new discontent. She ought to feel pleased. Bob would be happy about the dance on Wednesday. Her mother really had seemed better these last few weeks. Summer had come and they were having a lovely warm spell; there was even talk of the girls getting a rise at work – not much, but it would help. She might be able to put enough by to buy herself a new winter coat, for hers was the same one her mother had bought for her ready for university wear. It looked shabby, out of date and childish now.

What was unsettling her? Not her mother. Bob, perhaps? Was he falling out of love with her? He hadn’t lingered very long tonight, the way he usually did, trying to detain her till the last possible moment before she left him. Would it be the end of the world if Bob did find himself another girl?

This is silly! Alison told herself sharply as she turned for the third time on her pillow. Bob is all I have to look forward to at the end of every day. My few hours with him are all the fun, the excitement, the interest in my life.

She’d known Bob so long; he was as much part of her life as the four walls round her, comfortable, familiar, understanding, secure. During the immediate crisis after her father’s death he’d helped her in every way he could; his parents, too. They’d even offered to lend Alison money, but much as they had needed it, Alison had refused. She was far too proud to be beholden to anyone.

Because her mother had been so broken up Alison had had to try to maintain a cheerful optimism in her presence. Alone with Bob she had found comfort in tears and it was then Bob had first told her he loved her.

Alison tried to think now of marriage. She could visualize Bob coming home from work, tired, pleased to see her; she could see herself bringing him his tea, cooking his favourite dishes. And when it came to the more intimate side of married life … strangely her mind shied away from such thoughts. Yet if they were married she could lie in a double bed with him, her body his to do with as he wished. He could make love to her ‘properly’ – the way he wanted. In a way, she wanted it, too, but not until after she was married.

She wondered sometimes if there were anything wrong with her. Sex was all most of the girls at the factory talked about. They seemed to know all about it, too. They accepted sex as a kind of appetite, necessary rather the way eating and drinking were necessary. But for her it had to be different. It had to be linked with love, a love so strong that she would want to give herself, all of herself for life. Why, when she loved Bob, did she not feel that way about him now? She did love him. It wasn’t just his good looks. She liked his personality, his cheerfulness, his good temper, his outlook on life. He wasn’t a prey to moods the way she was, up one minute and down in a trough of depression the next. She always knew where she stood with a boyfriend like Bob. Funny the way she still thought of him sometimes as a boy. He was a man, six foot tall and well built. He often played football for the local amateur team and lots of people said they thought he could have been a professional footballer if he wished. But that would have wasted a good brain. He was doing well in engineering, too.

At long last Alison slept, her red-brown hair falling in soft curls against the white pillow, soot-black lashes curling down childishly over her cheeks. In sleep the lines of worry, anxiety and fatigue were wiped from her and she looked radiantly beautiful, a young woman on the threshold of life – and love.

‘Bob, I’m terribly sorry, but I shan’t be able to come tonight after all.’

Alison gripped the telephone receiver in a hot, damp hand. The call-box seemed stifling this June afternoon. Bob’s voice came back to her, distorted and unfamiliar over the headset.

‘Alison, why not? You said on Monday—’

‘I know. It’s Mother. She had a terrible attack this morning. I was late for work. I can’t leave her tonight. There’ll be nothing done. I had to put her back to bed. It’s such bad luck, Bob. She was feeli. . .