Kate took off her things in the hall, and Peggy, pointing to the sitting-room door, gave her arm a gentle pat and left her.
As she opened the door Kate did not know what she expected to find.
But when she saw Rodney looking to all appearances whole she experienced a slight shock; she had not expected him to look whole. He sat lost in brooding thought, his head bent and his hands lying idle on his knees. At the sight of him all her senses seemed to rush from her body. In the second before he looked up she experienced the acute pain of incredulity that accompanies any feeling nearing ecstasy; she was alive to the overlapping of the emotions, for this joy which filled her was also suffering. He lifted his head, and the remark he was about to make to Peggy died on his lips as he beheld Kate standing with her back to the door. The air between them seemed to vibrate; emotion winged back and forth;
but neither of them moved. He dosed his eyes, and when he opened them again and Kate was still there he breathed her name . a small sound, so inadequate, expressing nothing of the wonder of this moment. He made a hasty and clumsy effort to rise, grabbing for his stick and knocking it out of his reach. His bad arm gave way under his weight as he tried to assist himself from the chair. He floundered back, despair and rage at his helplessness and inadequacy to meet this occasion tearing at him.
In the second that it took Kate to reach him, she saw asi that he wasn't whole, nothing about him was the same;
his hair was grey at the temples and his face was unnaturally pale, with the bones showing prominent under the skin, and his body seemed broken.
She was at his feet, and her arms were around him, straining him to her. As only one arm returned the pressure she was choked by a rush of feeling, so poignant that no words could express it. Love and tenderness seemed small parts of its ingredients; there was a protective and maternal urge mixed with her passion for him; all so intertwined that they were inseparable. And, as his lips gropingly sought hers, her whole being was transported, even while her heart was rent by his tears which were wetting her face.
THE END
Further examples of Catherine Cookson's renowned ability to capture the flavour of the Northern scene and its people, past and present:
