First Friends (19 page)

‘Are you, Charlotte?' Kate was touched. ‘That's very sweet of you.'

Charlotte smiled and then, suddenly shy, hid her face in her mug of milk.

‘Poor Charlotte is horrified that the twins have to be shut away up there without their family,' said Cass, smiling at her eldest child. ‘Aren't you, my poppet? If she had her way they'd be out every weekend.'

‘Don't worry.' Oliver ladled honey on to his toast with great panache. ‘Next year, I'll be going and then I can look after them.'

‘Ollie!' Charlotte glanced at Cass and Kate, scandalised by his presumption.

‘Oh, he's probably right, Charlotte,' said Kate, laughing. ‘Oliver is capable of anything.'

Oliver beamed at her tolerantly, his cheeks bulging.

‘He can't wait to get up there and start organising them,' said Cass. ‘Mr Wortham won't know what's hit him.'

On Sunday, as she stood at the window, watching the children racing about in the garden, Kate wondered how she would ever be able to make the effort to leave the twins and drive back to Kent—not home, it wasn't home—and Mark. She had been terribly envious when Cass
had produced yet another child, a beautiful blue-eyed girl, and had prayed that she might yet be lucky herself but there had been no sign of a baby on the way, despite Mark's sexual energy. Her hopes that the shore job would bring them close, solve the differences and strengthen the relationship, so that those past lonely years would be given a point, had been dashed and she knew that she'd been living with a dream. She also knew now that another child would not be, had never been, the answer.

‘They always remind me of your brother. I met him once. Chris, isn't it? The absolute image of him, aren't they?' Cass stood at her shoulder looking out into the garden.

Charlotte had fallen and the twins were helping her up. Guy was brushing her down while Giles had his arm around her, comforting her. Oliver strolled up eating an apple and held it out casually, offering her a bite.

Suddenly, uncontrollably, Kate began to cry. Great tearing sobs shook her body. Tears spurted from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She turned blindly and Cass took her into her arms, quietly, comfortingly, and stood holding her, watching the trees that danced and bowed in the wind beyond the window.

‘H
ow STRANGE LIFE IS
,' mused Kate, some weeks later, as she drank an after-dinner cup of coffee. ‘It seems to go in cycles. You spend a period of time in a certain place with a set group of friends, shopping in a particular town, and you feel that this is how it has always been and always will be. You look back on other parts of your life and think “Was that really me? Did I do those things, know those people?” but you feel that the “you” of now is the only one that really counts. Then, suddenly, the kaleidoscope is shaken, the pattern shifts. Everything changes and you start all over again and the “you” that really counted becomes the past. Do I make any sense?'

Mark turned a page of his newspaper. ‘Mmmmm?'

‘It doesn't matter,' sighed Kate. ‘I was just thinking that I seem to have lived in Chatham for ever and I'm thinking of going home.'

There was more silence broken by a sudden shout of laughter from Mark.

‘Oh, what a scream! There's a Frenchman here. He's ninety-one years old, been driving for seventy-five years without a single accident and he's just been killed in a car crash. Don't you think that's funny?'

Kate stared at Mark for a long moment. ‘I don't think it's the least bit funny. I think it's rather sad.'

He lowered the paper and looked at her. She watched his expression change and set, as though his features were stiffening under ice, and, as usual, felt as though she were looking at a stranger.

‘I said that I was thinking of going back to Devon,' she said.

Mark raised his eyebrows in a mental shrug. ‘Why not? We'll be going to sea soon. Trials and so on. You may as well be down there as on your own here.'

‘I didn't mean it quite like that. I think that I was thinking of a more permanent separation. After all, there's not much point in continuing our marriage, is there?'

Mark folded the newspaper and put it aside without taking his eyes from hers.

‘Oh, I think there is. What about the embarrassment of telling people, for a start? You're just feeling a bit depressed.'

‘I don't think so.' Kate shook her head. ‘It's so much more than that, Mark. There's nothing left as far as I'm concerned. The only thing to show for the last eleven years is the twins. Perhaps if we'd had another child . . . '

‘Oh, don't start on that one again,' he said impatiently. ‘Children are much more likely to wreck a marriage. You know my feelings about that.'

‘Yes. Yes, I know.' Despair gave her the courage to confront him at last. ‘I think I'm going to have to tell you what I really think about our relationship. You see, being married to you has been so different to what I always imagined marriage was about. It's like being married to a lodger or a paying guest who has sexual rights over my body—to someone who isn't really a part of me or interested in me. I used to
put it down to the fact that you were young and trying to carve out a difficult career for yourself and I decided that we would have to wait until you matured a bit and got far enough up the ladder to feel secure. But that was going to take years and the only way I could have got through those years was to have more children—so that I had something to live for, too.

‘I thought it was morally wrong of you to deny me those children, so I came off the pill. Because I didn't tell you, that was morally wrong of me and I know that two wrongs don't make a right—but what else could I do? I know that children aren't the answer in the long run—but I thought we'd sort ourselves out, given enough time, and that they would have been the answer in the short term. I know now that it goes deeper than that and that we just don't have a marriage and never would have had one even if I'd had another baby. Perhaps it was lucky that nothing happened after all.'

‘Oh, hardly.' Mark had been leaning back in his chair while she talked, regarding her with amused contempt. Now he smiled a little and continued to stare at her.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘I don't believe in trusting to luck. Did you honestly think that knowing how much you wanted another child I'd trust you to go on taking the pill? Oh, no.' He laughed aloud. ‘No. I had a vasectomy.'

Kate felt as if she had been dealt a heavy physical blow. Her heart began to beat with thick heavy strokes and she could hardly breathe. She seemed to stagger under it and Mark laughed again.

‘I knew I couldn't trust you. You were droning on about it one summer—oh, years ago now. The boat went to Sweden and someone told me where I could get it done, no questions asked. I thought it was sensible and I see now that I was right.' Still smiling, he watched her for a moment and then picked up his newspaper. ‘I think it's a very good idea for you to go back to Devon. It's getting very busy now and I shall be perfectly happy in
Pembroke
. There's no point in your coming to Faslane when the boat goes up, but listen very carefully . . . ' the smile had gone and the familiar threatening, heavy-lidded look had
taken its place . . . I have no intention of advertising our differences to the Navy and neither will you! I'm sure you want me to continue to support you and the twins and to meet the school fees and the mortgage, don't you? Naturally, I shall come down if I feel like it. And I shall expect you to come up to the Commissioning.'

He stared at her for a moment longer and then shook out the newspaper and buried himself in the pages. Presently Kate got up and left the room. A week later she was back in Devon.

‘Felicity! This is an unexpected pleasure.' Cass, her baby daughter astride her hip, stood at the top of the Rectory steps looking down at her. ‘To what can I possibly owe this honour?'

Felicity took her bag from the car, shut the door and advanced to meet her.

‘Quite a spread you've got here, Cass. Very impressive. I hear your father bought it for you.'

‘Some people will say anything.' Cass stayed where she was and Felicity was obliged to stop a couple of steps below, feeling at a distinct disadvantage.

‘I've really come to see Kate.' Felicity abandoned any pretence. ‘I understand she's staying with you.'

‘She's not here at the moment,' lied Cass, with an ease of manner that would have shocked and disappointed her father. ‘Can I take a message?'

Realising that Cass intended to conduct the whole interview on the front steps, Felicity felt her temper begin to rise.

‘George tells me that she wants him out of the cottage. It's quite ridiculous. I feel that it's most unreasonable of her to come rushing back after a few months and expect him to go.'

‘But that was the arrangement, Felicity. George had it on very reasonable terms, and all her nice things left there to make him feel at home, on the understanding that if she needed to come back unexpectedly he would leave.'

‘Nice things! What nice things?' Felicity looked scornful but decided to let it pass. ‘But why does she need to come back? The boat doesn't commission for another three months and then she goes to Faslane.'

‘What a lot you know, Felicity.' Cass watched an unbecoming flush stain Felicity's thin cheeks. ‘You have been busy. And you must forgive me for asking this question but what on earth has any of it to do with you?

‘George feels extremely upset . . . '

‘Oh, balls!' said Cass impatiently. ‘Kate went to see George yesterday. We both went. He was absolutely sweet about it. Most understanding. We were there for hours. He's going to move back into the Mess. Odd, actually,' mused Cass, ‘I almost felt that, for some reason—can't imagine what—he was relieved to have an excuse to go. Very odd.' She gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, well. So you don't have to worry about him anymore. Really touching, your attitude to old George, Felicity. Just like an old mother hen with one chick but then, you're rather older than he is, aren't you? Well, than all of us! You mustn't worry about him so. I always did feel that you should have had children . . . '

But she spoke to thin air. Felicity had gone. The car door slammed, the engine burst into life and gravel spurted as she turned the car and sped away down the drive.

‘You're very naughty.' Kate joined Cass on the steps.

‘She is the ultimate cow. Good job we saw her coming.'

‘You shouldn't have said that about George.'

‘It's probably true. He welcomed us with open arms, didn't he? Even though he knew we were going to ask him to go. He's great fun on his own. Felicity has the most terrible effect on him. I think he's frightened of her.'

‘It's going to be a bit embarrassing,' said Kate, as she followed Cass back into the house. ‘Everyone's going to wonder why I've come back so suddenly. You won't tell anyone, will you, Cass? Not about the vasectomy?'

‘Of course I won't! What do you take me for? And no one will wonder anything. No one needs an excuse for getting away from Chatham, for God's sake, and lots of wives of our ages are beginning to stay put now. Stop worrying. What d'you say we wander down to the village and go and see my old pa? Charlotte and Oliver go in and see him on their way home from school. Hammy's always got some little treat on the go. Saul can just about make it and we'll put Gemma in the push chair. Then we can all come back together.'

‘The twins will be breaking up in a few weeks,' said Kate, taking Saul's hand as they set off down the drive. ‘We'll be able to take them all to the beach.'

‘So long as you don't sit on your own, moping.'

‘I wish I could finish it properly. I shall feel in a sort of limbo but the idea of divorce fills me with horror.'

‘Perhaps he'll die,' said Cass cheerfully. ‘Fall under a bus or something. Trip off the casing and drown.'

‘Don't think I haven't thought of it,' said Kate guiltily. ‘I was imagining it myself last night in bed. How many ways he could come to a painless end. I don't want to go on with it dragging round my neck for ever. But where would I live?'

‘Well, it was your pa who gave you the deposit for the cottage.'

‘Yes, but it's Mark who's been paying the mortgage. If I was qualified for anything I could get a job and take it over. I must look into it. But what about the school fees? The naval grant doesn't cover it all, you know, and it's even worse when they go to second school. It would be a pity to take them out just when they've settled so well. They've been moved about so much and so many of the friends they've known all their lives are there. It would be a terrible upheaval. I couldn't possibly hope to earn enough for all of it.'