Face the Wind and Fly (15 page)

‘Oh no you don’t.’ Kate marched across the kitchen and stood between him and the door. ‘I know you hate rows, Andrew, but you can’t run away from this. I need answers. Actually, I
deserve
answers, don’t you think? Why are you doing this to me? Don’t you care about me any more?’ Her look was steady, but inside she was a cauldron of raw emotion. Their relationship seemed to be balanced on the edge of a blade, so finely that one small nick might cause fatal bleeding. ‘Have you stopped to think, for one minute, what your behaviour is going to do to our marriage?’

Andrew’s expression changed from shadowed secrecy to defiance. ‘Of course I care, Kate. But do you? You’re never around. There’s always something, isn’t there? Some project at work that keeps you there all the hours or some emergency that we have to work around. You cancel our holidays, you let me down with my guests—’

‘
Jesus
, Andrew, not that again! That’s so unfair! I will absolutely not let you use that dinner as an excuse for you to go off and screw Sophie – because that’s what I imagine this is all about. Isn’t it? You have no excuse, Andrew, none at all, for betraying our marriage vows – for upsetting your
son
, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Sophie loves me,’ he said, softly.

That stopped Kate short.

‘And I love her,’ he added, his chin jutting forwards.

The bubbling in her gut was not just the rich food she’d eaten this evening. The thought of Andrew’s hands caressing another woman’s body was hideous. She imagined him winding his legs round young, white limbs and the nausea intensified – but all the same, this was not a game she intended to lose. She swallowed hard, fighting for self control.

‘I don’t believe you.’  She stared at him as levelly as she could, forcing him to hold her gaze. ‘You’re playing out some middle-aged fantasy. Life isn’t like that. Life isn’t simple, or easy, or filled with lovey-dovey, commitment-free adoration, however pleasant that may seem.’

She gripped the back of a chair, the wood hard and rough under her fingers. ‘It’s about earning a living, about compromise, about taking the hard decisions that have to be taken every day about what priorities are and what has to be put second so that bills can be paid and children reared. And it’s about thinking about someone else’s needs as well as your own.’

‘Don’t preach at me, Kate. You haven’t earned the right.’

‘
Preach?’

‘And don’t talk to me about children. I believe I know more about child rearing than you do.’

‘
Fuck
that, Andrew! If you let your vanity ruin our marriage, I think a whole lot of school runs will be cancelled out, don’t you? Have you thought about what you’re doing to Ninian? He
saw
her tonight.’

Andrew pursed his lips. ‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh. You need to talk to him. You need to give him some reassurance that the life he knows, the family he knows, is safe and sound and is not going to collapse around him. He’s a teenager, for heaven’s sake. He’s probably at the most difficult, vulnerable age he can be. He needs a father, Andrew. He needs a role model, not some self-centred, deluded, narcissistic, cradle-snatching egomaniac who’s off screwing some teenager—’

‘Sophie is twenty eight.’

‘And you’re fifty-seven, for Christ’s sake. Look at yourself!’ She reached out and grabbed his arms. ‘This has to stop, Andrew. Think about it. Please. Whatever you think has gone wrong between us, let’s talk about it. We can work it out. Don’t fall for whatever line it is Sophie is feeding you, because your family deserves better than that. Your first family and your second family.’

She could see his eyes flicker, then he looked down. She changed her line of attack to press home the advantage. ‘
I
love you, Andrew. I’ve loved you from the moment we met, in that café, remember?’ Her smile was shaky, but she persevered. ‘You changed my life. I was a young graduate, then suddenly, you were there and I became a stepmother and a mother and I had to deal with all that. But through it all, I have loved you, always loved you, more than anything in this world.’

He dragged one arm out of her grasp and wiped a hand tiredly across his face. ‘Oh,’ he said tiredly, ‘Love —’ as if thinking about the word exhausted him.

‘Stop seeing her, Andrew. Please. Don’t put Harry through the upheaval,
again
, that they went though after we met. And talk to Ninian. He needs reassurance.’

There was a pause. Her instinct was to fill it with words, but she had pleaded her cause, and played the family card, so she forced herself to let the silence lie.

He looked at her. His eyes were troubled, but he said, ‘All right, Kate. You win.’

‘You’ll tell her you won’t see her again?’

‘I’ll tell her.’

The relief was so intense that Kate had to sink onto a chair. ‘Thank you, Andrew,’ she said quietly. ‘Thank you.’

In bed they hugged each other intensely, as though closeness could mend cracks. But they didn’t make love.

Chapter Sixteen

By the beginning of July, the Met mast results were in and looked favourable. With the planning application about to be lodged, it was time to start the communication with locals rolling, and the first local exhibition about the Summerfield wind farm was in Forgie village hall.

‘I’d rather it was in Hailesbank, ’ Kate said to Gail, who was in charge of organising the schedule. ‘Or even Summerfield, come to that.’

Gail, who was the most experienced person in Kate’s team, was apologetic. ‘It just wasn’t possible, Kate, sorry. The hall in Hailesbank is booked out with all sorts of things for the next few weekends and there’s a Summer Fair in Summerfield school, followed by a Scout Jumble Sale and a—’

‘Okay, I get the picture. So we have to cut our teeth on Forgie, the hardest nut to crack. Or is that a mixed metaphor?’

Gail smiled. ‘So long as we don’t break our teeth I guess it’ll be okay. Be positive, Kate, look at it this way – we get Forgie over with.’

‘Hm. I’m not sure we’re ever going to win Forgie over to the wind farm, but I guess it’ll do us no harm to discover the worst about what we’re up against. So – who’s going to be on duty, will we have all the displays we need, and what do you need me to do?’

It was a week after Kate’s run-in with Andrew and she was still feeling raw. True to his promise, Andrew had had a talk with Ninian, and reported back that he seemed reassured. She didn’t believe that reassurance would come so easily. Ninian now spent most of the time in his bedroom, with the sound turned up high on his iPod speakers, or playing some game with his friends Banksy and Cuzz. Cuzzer was round at the house almost every day, a new trend that Kate found worrying. She was uneasy about her son’s friendship with Steve Cousins and couldn’t work out why Andrew wasn’t.

Gail said, ‘You don’t need to come, Kate. I know it’s difficult for you, living in the village.’

‘Nice someone appreciates that. But I’ll be fine. Mark put me in charge because he thought I’d have some influence locally.’ She pulled a wry face – woman-to-woman, confidential. ‘Of course I’ll be there.’

She felt as though she was on trial, at home and at work. She thought of Andrew –
You’re never here
– and, Jack snapping at her heels and desperate for her to trip up. She couldn’t afford to make a slip in either place and she was beginning to feel the pressure.

‘Great. That’s good. I’m sure you will make a difference, you were terrific at the Community Council meeting. But we can get the exhibition up, just drop by whenever you want to.’

When reliable, hard-working Gail said, ‘We’ll get the exhibition up,’ Kate knew she’d do exactly that, so by the time she got there on Saturday, still drained from the previous week’s drama with Andrew, work was well under way.

‘Is there an extension lead, anyone? This telly needs to be in this corner.’

‘Can we get a small table from somewhere? I’d like to stack these leaflets on it.’

‘Where’s the best place for these pop-up banners?’

She stood in the centre of it all, happy to let Gail field the queries. It was nice not to be where the buck stopped, for once. Someone was missing though. She caught Gail as she strode past clutching a box full of leaflets. ‘Where’s Jack? I thought he was coming today.’

‘He’s picking up the blueprints. He should be— ah, look, he’s here.’

Right on cue, Jack Bailey strolled in. He couldn’t have known Kate was there already, but he still had that slight air of arrogance that got under her skin. He stopped dead when he saw her, then smiled. Kate didn’t much like that smile. She said, ‘Hello, Jack. You’ve got the plans, I see.’

‘Right here.’

‘There’s some Blu Tack on the table there, do you want to start getting them up on that wall?’

With everyone else buzzing around like bluebottles, Jack Bailey was as laid back as if he was about to sit down with a coffee and read the morning papers. ‘Sure.’

He did what she asked though. Half an hour later, she checked the hall. ‘Looking good. Video showing other wind farms. Pop-ups about AeGen, pop-ups about turbine technology. Fact sheets. Quizzes for the kids. Questionnaires. Outline plans for Summerfield. Great work, team.’

She finished up at the wall where Jack had stuck the plans. The first showed the possible location for twelve turbines. The second blueprint showed possible access routes. These were always a cause for concern because inevitably there was a lot of traffic during construction and people hated the noise and intrusion.

Something on the second plan jumped out at her at once. ‘Jack? This isn’t right.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The route you’ve marked in red. This one here.’ She stuck her finger on the red line.

Jack didn’t miss a beat. ‘It’s by far the cheapest route.’

‘Jack, I explained
exactly
why that route couldn’t be used.’ Out of the corner of her eye she was aware that the rest of her team had backed away discreetly, anticipating trouble. Jack Bailey’s defiance was likely to cause a serious problem and already Kate’s mind was leaping ahead to the possible consequences. ‘I believe I was absolutely explicit, Jack,’ she said, her tone changing from short-tempered to icy. Her regular staff knew her well enough to know this was not a good sign. Did Jack? ‘This is not what I expect from members of my team.’

‘It’s bloody obvious, though, isn’t it?’ In another place, at another time, she would have dealt with this challenge to her authority peremptorily, but Jack had timed things perfectly because it was ten o’clock and the doors were already opening to admit the public.

‘I’ll speak to you about this later,’ she hissed. ‘In the meantime, you will please explain to everyone – and I mean
everyone
– who looks at that map that we will
not
be using that option for the access road.’

A trickle of visitors – easily handled – turned after half an hour into a stream and it became clear that the event was following a typical pattern. A third of people were mildly interested and open to persuasion, a third were reasonably or enthusiastically supportive and a third were completely against all wind farms and absolutely unwilling to examine the evidence. Frank Griffiths, as Kate had anticipated, led the onslaught.

‘Good morning, Frank. How are you?’

‘Kate, how lovely to see you,’ He swept his arm round the exhibition. ‘This all looks very professional.’

‘Thanks. Would you like me to talk you through it?’ Best to lead the bull by the horns, so to speak.

‘Why not?’

For the next fifteen minutes, she watched video clips with him and balanced his comments with proven facts, again fielded his questions about noise and flicker, discussed lifetime costs and the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process, and the general question of unsightliness.

‘You won’t see them from Forgie,’ she stressed, as she had so often before.

‘But you will from Summerfield. They’ll rear up right behind Forgie House.’

‘Not really, not even there. They’ll be far enough back on the hill to be barely noticeable.’

‘The drawings we’ve had done show quite the opposite.’

‘Well I would have to query the perspectives and sizes your artist has been working to. In fact, you’ll only see the top of the blades and once the re-landscaping has been done and the trees mature, I don’t think that even they will be noticeable.’

‘Our artist—’

Kate interrupted politely. ‘If it helps, I could fix up a meeting with our technicians and landscapers. I’m sure we could reassure you.’

‘Well, the Community Council would appreciate that.’

Was this the moment to bring up the matter of the silent phone calls?

Gail touched her arm.

‘Sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone here from
The
Stoneyford Echo
. Could you maybe manage a few words?’

In the absence of a press officer, it was Kate’s job to field media queries. Frank said obligingly, ‘You go. I’ll just finish looking round myself.’

‘Fine. Thank you. Do come and find me afterwards if you have any more questions, won’t you?’

She was finishing what felt like a good interview with an intelligent young reporter, when she heard angry voices from the far side of the hall. Frank was gesticulating at Jack Bailey and jabbing a furious finger at the plans. Her heart sank. The idiot had obviously ignored her orders. ‘Excuse me a moment, will you?’

It was fifteen steps across the room and as she took the last few Frank’s voice rose clearly above the hubbub. ‘This road goes right through Bonny Brae Woods!’

‘It is only one of the possible access roads,’ she heard Jack saying, smoothly.

‘Bonny Brae Woods is one of the few remnants of our ancient oak forest left! This can’t possibly be allowed—’

She intervened in a calm voice. ‘Actually, that route is shown there in error. There is no intention of putting the road through the Woods. We just didn’t have time to get the plans reprinted.’

He swivelled round to face her. ‘It’s there because it’s been thought about. I know how you lot operate. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Let me tell you, Kate, this will—’

‘I promise you, this is an error.’

Frank was not for calming. Kate guessed that he’d seen little to object to in the rest of the exhibition, so he was picking on this. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the reporter was still scribbling and she diverted her attention. ‘This route is not on our agenda,’ she said, as equably as she could. ‘I would like you to make that clear in your article.’

‘Oh, sure.’

Apprehension gripped Kate’s chest, but there was little more she could say. She’d have to call AeGen’s Press Manager to explain what had happened and hope that a direct plea to the editor would sort things out.

As soon as Frank and the reporter had gone, she turned to Jack. ‘Take that plan down.’

‘I did tell him—’

‘Jack, you told him it was one of the possible access routes. I heard you myself. That was in direct contravention to my orders. I hate to think what damage this might have done. Take it down. Now.’ She kept her voice low, because the hall was still full of visitors, but her glare could have felled an ox at thirty paces. ‘You’ll have to talk through access roads with anyone who specifically asks about them, and you will make it absolutely clear, but only if anyone asks, that there is no intention of going anywhere near Bonny Brae Woods. Understood?’

He shrugged in grudging acceptance and by the time she had crossed the hall to greet some of the Hailesbank Community Council members, who were just arriving, he had removed the plan.

The Stoneyford Echo
came out on a Wednesday. This was Saturday. She had three days’ grace.

Sunday was a day they usually tried to keep for family. Generally speaking, Kate liked Sundays. It was a day of rest, a day for reading the papers, eating together, relaxing. This Sunday, though, something else was on the agenda.

‘I take it you are remembering that it’s Forgie House Open Day today,’ Andrew said. ‘I promised the Nesbitts we’d go.’

He’d just emerged from the shower, pink and clean, his hair ruffled and damp. Kate had always been tempted to gather him close when he was like this – the softness of his newly washed skin turned her on. What once seemed so natural, though, had now become self-conscious and forced. By her reckoning they’d had sex just twice in recent weeks, and both times had been a fumble in the dark, not the kind of delighted romp that had always characterised their lovemaking.

She was still in bed, reading – but a thriller rather than papers from work, because she’d decided not to bring work to bed any more. ‘I had remembered. Nice day for it. What time do you want to go?’

‘About eleven?’

‘Fine. I’ll just finish this chapter then go and shower.’

There was a strain between them that had never been there before and she hated it. Andrew wasn’t aggressive, nor overly loving, he wasn’t even indifferent. He was obviously trying to be natural – but that was the problem.
He was having to try.
She bit her lip and turned a page, then glanced across to where Andrew was pulling on his trousers, an action she’d seen several hundreds of times before. It was a mundane, everyday act, but she felt faintly embarrassed. The comfortable closeness they’d had for years was being nibbled away by the spectre of suspicion that now sat blackly on her shoulder. This was
Andrew
, for heaven’s sake. She was irritated at herself for feeling uncomfortable, then she got mad that he’d been selfish enough to create this situation. Reading became impossible. She flung back the duvet and squirmed out of bed.

‘Actually, I’ll go now.’

‘I’ll have breakfast ready by the time you’re dressed.’

‘Thanks.’ She said the word stiffly. How could this be happening?

Perhaps their life had become dull. Perhaps as Andrew seemed to imply, it was
her
fault for having a career instead of devoting all her attention to him. It was true that she was often out long hours. Perhaps she had been guilty of neglecting him. He had clearly found Sophie’s obvious adoration flattering – but
love?
 He couldn’t be serious, could he?

Forgie House sat half way between Forgie village and the Summerfield council estate. When it was built, the intention of its wealthy owner was clearly to proclaim his superior wealth to his country neighbours in Forgie. To smooth his path to comfort, he was conveniently able to draw on a pool of cheap labour from the inhabitants of the small settlement of Summerfield for the many services such a grand mansion requires in order to function. Nowadays the estate was looked after by a Trust, and let for a reasonable sum on certain conditions about upkeep and maintenance. One condition was that the gardens should be open to the public on an annual Open Garden Day.

They were hardly in the gate when— ‘Mr Courtenay! So pleased you could come.’

The greeting was for Andrew, Kate might as well not have existed. She didn’t mind. Andrew had a wide fan base and was looked on as a real celebrity locally, whereas – at least until the Summerfield wind farm project had been set in motion – Kate had slipped quietly under the radar.