First Friends (15 page)

When it came to dealing with anything outside the Navy with its rules and regulations which provided him with a framework in which he felt comfortable—and, as far as Mark was concerned, that included married life—he buckled at the knees. That strange mixture of vulnerability and cruelty was so difficult to combat. She was coming to the conclusion that he was a bully. He kept up a campaign of
psychological warfare designed to keep her off-balance. But why? Why couldn't he simply trust her and relax in her love and loyalty? Perhaps he was afraid that she may demand too much in return. She was beginning to realise that she was the stronger character and yet she feared him.

The next few weeks seemed endless.

Kate stayed at home as much as possible in case Mark should telephone. He sometimes did this if he found himself ashore for an evening's relaxation. Their conversations were strained and monosyllabic: yes, he was fine; yes, it was tough; yes, a few more had been thrown off the course. He told her that if he hadn't phoned by eleven o'clock that meant he had survived another day and she took to waiting up until ten past, twenty past, just in case. She knew that he could survive until the final day and still fail. Teacher gave them the maximum opportunity to get it right. Kate began to rehearse conversations, practising how she would respond if he failed whilst feeling disloyal to be even contemplating it. One morning, as she returned from taking the twins to school, she heard the telephone ringing. She raced into the cottage and seized the receiver.

‘Kate?' It was Mark's voice. It sounded slurred and strange.

Kate's heart seemed to stop beating altogether and her brain leapt hither and thither trying to remember her rehearsed replies.

‘Hello. Yes, it's me. Are you all right?'

‘Oh, Kate, I'm through! I've passed! Isn't it fantastic?'

He sounded as if he might burst into tears and Kate realised that she was nodding wordlessly, her eyes tight shut with relief.

‘I can't believe it. Can't . . . can't seem to take it in.' Mark seemed to be having difficulty with his words and she guessed that he was drunk.

‘It's wonderful!' she cried, finding her voice at last. ‘It's terrific, fantastic! Oh, I'm so proud of you. You deserve it. Well done.'

‘We've only just been told. Old Tom's made it, too. We've just come in on the James Bond boat and we've been drinking all the way.'

Well, that explained the voice. And why not? He deserved it after all the months of strain.

‘There's one thing though. We've been told where we're going.' He gave a sort of snort. ‘It's typical! I've been given a boat in
Dolphin.'

Kate felt a great stab of dismay. She had so hoped for a boat running out of Devonport so that they could stay in their new home. Resolutely she pushed her disappointment away. He had passed and that was all that mattered. She said so.

‘I knew that you'd see it like that.' His voice was ebullient now. ‘I don't care where it is. I've got a boat to drive and that's all that matters to me. Look, I've got to go now. There's a queue forming. I'll phone you later.'

Trembling from head to foot, Kate replaced the receiver. She suddenly realised how tense she had been for the last few weeks and, sinking into the nearest chair, she burst into tears of relief.

The turning point came when Kate found that Mark didn't want her around when he passed Perisher and was given a submarine to drive. He would be putting up his half stripe in the autumn and was obviously delighted at the way his career was going. It was confirmed that he would be given a boat running out of
Dolphin
and he put his foot down firmly, refusing to allow her and the twins to join him in Alverstoke.

She couldn't believe it. It was the first real reward of his naval career and she wanted to share in it. Cass was right when she said that by this stage the wives had earned a bit of glory, too. Tom had been given a submarine running out of Faslane and although Cass was dreading the move to Scotland she was very pleased at the idea of being a Captain's wife. She was still at Crapstone at the end of the summer, Tom being away, with Mark, on a course.

The girls were at the General's. Lunch was over and the children were playing in the garden. The General had made some excellent coffee and they sat lazily on at the table, Cass nibbling at some little chocolates that he had produced.

‘When does Mark take over?' she asked. ‘Tom doesn't go until just after Christmas. Plenty of time to get a quarter sorted out. Smuggler's Way, I suppose. I must remember to pack my kilt! Maybe you'll get a quarter in Alverstoke this time, Kate. I can't wait. Can you? Just think—the Wardroom hanging on our every word, all the young wives falling over themselves to get into our good books. Not to mention all
those chaps playing up to us. Yum, yum! Frankly, I think that we enjoy it every bit as much as they do. It's our ego trip as much as theirs. I suppose you'll let the cottage?'

Kate was silent. How could she explain that her presence wasn't required and that Mark had said quite clearly that he didn't want the distraction of his wife and children?

‘After all,' he had said cheerfully, ‘if I'm driving a boat I'm damned if she's going to spend much time sitting beside the wall!'

‘But you'll have to be in sometimes,' Kate had protested. ‘Surely it would be fun to be together then? There're bound to be parties and things on the boat and in
Dolphin.'

‘Not if I can help it.' Mark's smile died away. ‘It's not some bloody Sunday School picnic. When I'm on leave I can come home. It'll be nicer for me to come here than to be stuck in Gosport in a quarter, and if there's anything special on, you can come up for it.'

For once, Kate tried to make him change his mind but it was soon made clear that, even if she insisted and moved to Alverstoke, Mark was more than capable of turning it into a very hollow victory. She imagined the tiny public snubs and put-downs of which he was a master, all done with a smile under cover of being ‘just a joke,' which she found so hurtful and damaging to her confidence. Anyway, who would want to go where they are so obviously not wanted?

She realised that Cass and the General were staring at her.

‘What's up?' Cass was now studying her closely. ‘Beastly for you to have to let it when you've just moved in but I expect you'll find a nice naval couple who would leap at it.'

‘I expect so,' Kate attempted a light laugh. ‘The thing is, we haven't quite decided whether I shall go or not.'

Cass put down her coffee cup. ‘You mean Mark doesn't want you,' she said brutally, ignoring her father's exclamation.

‘It's not quite like that,' protested Kate. ‘You know Mark. He seems totally unable to run his marriage and his job together. He's always preferred to keep them in separate compartments. Driving his own boat is terribly important to him. He wants to be able to concentrate on
it, give it his all, you know? Not have to worry about . . . well, anything else.'

‘For Christ's sake, Kate! When did Mark ever think about anything but Mark? He's never worried about you or the twins in his life. You give him everything on a plate! What about you?'

‘Darling.' The General tried to remonstrate with his daughter, distressed by the sight of Kate's white face. ‘Please. It's not your business . . . '

‘It is my business!' Kate had never seen Cass so angry. ‘Kate's my friend. Mark is a selfish, idle bastard who plays on her love for him and uses her disgracefully! All the other chaps take their wives with them. What's so special about him? He never lets her go on the visits abroad, deliberately doesn't tell her about Ladies' Nights and parties and then tells people that she's anti-social and won't go. He's a liar and a cheat. He even refuses to let her have any more children . . . '

To everyone's surprise, she burst into tears. After a moment Kate, who had been sitting as if turned to marble, pushed back her chair and went to her.

‘Come on,' she said, putting her arms around her. ‘Don't get upset. You know the old naval motto—If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined. Anyway, why should I want to go and live in a grotty quarter all on my own when I can be in my dear little cottage with your father just along the road? Much nicer.' She smiled at him over Cass's blonde head and was horrified to see that he had tears in his eyes too.

Cass gained control of herself and sat up. ‘Sorry,' she said. She scrubbed at her face with the napkin by her plate. ‘I'm sorry, Kate.'

‘Forget it.' Kate went back to her seat. ‘I shall miss you terribly so you must come down for visits, mustn't she?' She looked at the General, willing him to smile, to be happy. ‘We'll have lots of jollies, won't we?'

‘Absolutely. At least we shall all be here for Christmas.' He smiled back at her. ‘And I can tell you now that Mrs Hampton is already making plans for it.'

_______

‘ . . .
THINGS GO ON MUCH
as usual here,' Kate wrote, ‘and we're having some wonderful late-autumn weather. The twins go for the entrance exam to Mount House next week. I'm so glad that you are settling in and that you've got a good Wardroom.

‘The car has failed its MOT and Bob says that he can't bodge the rust again. I suppose that we can't complain. After all, she's done awfully well given her age. I've found a garage that will do a part exchange on a newer one, so I think we'll just have to do that . . . '

She put down her pen and looked around the kitchen for inspiration. None came. Standing up, she reversed the Ella Fitzgerald tape in the cassette player and went to fill the kettle. How many letters, she wondered, had she written to Mark over the last eight years? Not a single shore job in all that time although it wasn't his fault that the refit in Portsmouth had been such a disaster. She brushed a few geranium leaves into a corner of the window sill and removed a few dead leaves from the plants. Soup bubbled gently in a saucepan on the Rayburn beside which, in her basket, Kate's new puppy, Megs, was sleeping. The twins would be home from school before the contentment of the day turned to boredom, the quiet stillness to loneliness, but how would it be when they went off to boarding school?

George Lampeter had popped in once or twice since Mark had gone. The last time he had had rather more than usual to drink and had suggested that he take her to bed. She had resisted but suspected that he might make another attempt and her thoughts were confused. She was fond of him and attracted to him physically—but could she sleep with him? She felt that he might be a tender lover and already felt at least as close to him mentally as she did to Mark. Kate had never found sex a good enough sport on its own to want it for its own sake but maybe with George it would be different: maybe she would discover just what it was she seemed to be missing with Mark.

She leaned against the Rayburn and closed her eyes. She was in bed with George and he was kissing her, stroking her, touching her breasts. Kate dragged her eyes open and groaned. This was terrible—perhaps
making love could be as good as other people, books and films all implied. If it were, could she bear to miss out? Perhaps this time sex, just for the sake of it, would be good enough to outweigh her conscience. But was she capable of having a brief affair with George and then resuming her married life as though nothing had happened? If love-making was that good, would she be able to continue with a man who treated her like a machine? Again she groaned. If only she could be carried away by her emotions and just do it without all this soul searching! Like Cass.

‘Why shouldn't I?' she asked the kettle. ‘I've spent the last eight years waiting for boats to come in, waiting for Mark to come home, moving house, going nowhere, doing nothing. Most wives go abroad when the boats are going to nice places—they have a week in Gibraltar, a few days in Malta, time in the States. Mark obviously doesn't want me to go. He never asks me and when I suggest it he gets cross. He never tells me about Ladies' Nights or about parties I later find we were invited to. Two nights a year I go out—the Christmas Ball and the Summer Ball: and that's only if the boat's in!'

The kettle remained silent.

She could feel self-pity, that dreaded emotion, welling up inside her as she looked at her life slipping by while she waited—but for what? Leaves that were always an anti-climax? The shore job? That was supposed to be the answer: time with Mark, time to communicate, time to understand each other, time to become close so that even sex would be good.

The kettle began to sing.

She realised that she couldn't just sleep with George: she must give her marriage every chance and if Mark were to find out that she had been unfaithful—quite likely knowing her luck and thanks to the naval grapevine—what chance would it have then? Mark would never be able to trust her again. He might divorce her and then what would happen to the twins? How could she hurt them? And all for George!