Return to Sparkhouse

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Kate's parents spent the morning exploring Hebden Bridge and getting to know the place a little but being unsure of the town they arrived at the restaurant far too early, so they took a table and ordered coffee's until Kate and John arrived.

"We must try the Stubbing Wharf while we're here," Rod said. "See where Ted Hughes wrote his poem."

"The food there is marvellous," the woman at the next table chimed in. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"Have you been there?" Karen asked.

"Oh yes, I adore Hughes poetry." She smiled, sensing some kindred spirits. "There's very little culture in these parts so I take what little I can get. I'm Kate, by the way, Kate Lawton."

They shook hands.

"Our daughter is called Kate," Karen told her.

"Really? How lovely."

"So you're local then?"

"Well, I wasn't born here but I've been here a while now. We live just outside of Hebden, at White Gate Head."

"Isn't that near Sparkhouse Farm?" Karen asked. She thought she had seen a sign on the way out of town last night.

"Why yes, it is," her tone had cooled slightly but she was still smiling. "Are you familiar with the farm?"

"No, not really," Rod answered. "Our daughter just moved out there, with John and Lisa, perhaps you know them?"

Kate looked rather like she was sucking on a lemon.

"If you care about your daughter at all, you will get her away from that family immediately."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Karen asked, growing concerned.

"They're a bad lot, always have been. Right from the day we moved here they have tainted our lives and they weren't content until they had killed our son." She pulled a tissue from her bag and dabbed at her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Karen said, distressed by the other woman's apparent upset. "Do you mind if we ask what happened?"

"It was mainly that girl, Carol, though her father and daughter were no better. Carol strung my son along for years, letting him believe she loved him then getting herself pregnant by someone else. Lisa believed that Carol was her sister for years, you know? Imagine what that does to a child but she still strung Andrew along. Even when I thought he was finally free from her spell, she tempted him again and then turned around and married that retard, John Standring. It broke Andrews heart. He killed himself."

"I'm sorry," Karen said truthfully, because she couldn't imagine losing a child.

"Don't be, just keep your daughter away from them!"

"But surely John-" Karen began to argue but Kate Lawton cut her off.

"The way he dotes on Lisa, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if she was his."

"Surely John would have said something?" Karen argued.

"Not when Carol was only eleven when he knocked her up."

"Surely not." Karen and Rob shared a worried look, though they found it hard to believe her version of events.

"And he beat my Andrew up the day he died! Beat him to a bloody pulp!"

"He attacked me." John appeared behind Kate Lawton. "He came to the farm wanting Carol to run away with him. When she refused, he attacked me. I tried not to hurt him but when he cracked my skull with a brick, I had no choice but to fight back. I'm sorry your son killed himself, Mrs Lawton, but if you knew even a fraction of the pain you and yours caused our Carol, you'd see him for the pathetic man he was and Carol for the outstanding woman she were."