First Friends (23 page)

‘Mmm? Oh, I don't know. Why don't you take it off?'

‘But what?' Cass stood up and stepped out of the offending garment. ‘I can't believe you don't know.'

‘Mm. Oh, Cass. What? What does it matter?'

She let him half carry her to the bed.

‘Oh, darling, That's nice. Tom? Does Mark say that she's sleeping around?'

‘What? Well, no, not exactly.' Tom stood up and started pulling off his clothes. ‘Says she's been having an affair with some chap down here. That's why she wouldn't go to
Dolphin
while he was driving. Had to drag her up to Chatham and then she ran out on him to come back down here.'

‘Oh!' Cass frowned.

‘Come on, darling,' he said as he rolled on to the bed and pulled her to him. ‘Forget it, can't you?'

T
HE
M
ALLINSONS
'
COTTAGE WAS
set all alone at the end of the lane that joined the road that ran past the church out of the village. The footpath that led from the churchyard skirted its boundaries before crossing the fields at the back.

The terrace where the barbecue was laid out and the lawn below it looked across the fields to the moor and was a perfect setting for an al fresco evening. By the time the Wivenhoes arrived, having had an argument as to whether they should drive or walk, the party was well under way and the lane was full of parked cars. Tom, who had wanted to walk, lifted up his voice at once, complaining that by the time he had driven half a mile back up the lane to the nearest space he may as well have walked.

‘True, darling,' said Cassandra sweetly. ‘How well it's worked. You wanted to walk, after all. Now you can. You can drop us here, at the gate. Now we're all happy.'

‘Honestly, Cass,' chuckled Kate, as Tom drove away muttering imprecations. ‘How you get away with it I simply don't know. And don't think I've come just to keep Tom occupied while you pursue some man or other!'

‘What an idea!' Cass arched her brows and led the way in. ‘Really, Kate! Hello, Carol. How lovely it all looks. Whose clever idea was it to string those coloured lights in the trees? Oh, hello, Paul. Yes,
please. White wine will be lovely. Good heavens! So many people.'

Kate, keeping well back, looked around. At last she saw him. He was standing in a group of people, staring down into the glass he held. Pam stood beside him, laughing and gesticulating. She looked up at him and Kate watched Alex bend his head to hers and smile. She felt a little twisting pain in her heart and tried to look away. He looked up and straight at her. Kate looked back, wide-eyed, and they stared at each other for a moment until Paul Mallinson stepped in front of her and gave her a glass.

‘Don't stand here on your own,' he said. ‘I'm sure you know lots of people. Where's Tom?'

‘He's parking the car.' Kate took the glass and swallowed some wine. She smiled up at him. ‘Thanks. Are you settling in?'

‘Definitely. We shall hate having to leave it if I get appointed away. The down side of having your own home, of course.'

‘Hello, Lizzie,' said Kate, smiling at the little girl hovering behind him. ‘Poor Charlotte is green with envy that she couldn't come.'

‘Mummy said she could come,' volunteered Lizzie. ‘And she could have stayed the night. We could have gone to bed when we got tired but Charlotte's mummy said “no.” ' She offered Kate a bowl of crisps and then disappeared with Paul into the crowd.

Kate raised her eyes cautiously and saw Cass talking to a slight, brown-haired man: he looked familiar. Kate frowned, racking her memory. Suddenly he burst out laughing and memory shifted back and the pieces fell into place: Tony Whelan.

Hell and damnation! thought Kate. No wonder she didn't want Charlotte around. Cass prefers to play the field unhampered by her offspring. So that's why she was so keen for me to come, the cow! She jumped violently as Tom slid an arm around her waist.

‘Tom! Did you park OK? Shall we find you a drink?'

‘Hi, Tom!' It was Paul. ‘Great. Now what will you have to drink? I'm relying on your expertise with the steaks, remember. Come and get a drink.'

They disappeared together and Kate took another gulp of her wine.

‘Hello, Kate. This is a surprise.' (How pretty she looks in that strange blue colour.)

‘Hello, Alex. Is it?' (How does he always manage to look so relaxed?)

‘Is your husband with you?' (How would I be able to be polite to him if he is?)

‘No. No, he isn't. I came with the Wivenhoes. Do you know them?' (Cass is probably just his type.)

‘Name doesn't ring a bell. I wish I'd known you were coming.' (I would have to be with Pam.)

‘Why?' (Please let me stay cool.)

‘I would much rather have been with you.' (Well, that's done it.)

‘Would you?' (Then why are you with that beastly blonde tart?)

‘Kate?' (Does she mean . . . ? She looked for a moment as if . . . ?)

‘So there you are, Alex. You see, I can't trust him for a moment. I go off to the loo and he's immediately chatting up another woman. Living up to his reputation again!' Pam slipped her arm possessively into Alex's. ‘Oh, it's Kate! Hello, my dear. I warn you, don't trust this man for a moment.'

‘Tom,' said Kate with relief as he reappeared beside her. ‘Tom, this is Alex Gillespie. He's my boss and this is . . .' She hesitated, her pride making her pretend that she didn't know or couldn't remember Pam's name. ‘This is Tom Wivenhoe.'

Pam held out her hand, introducing herself, smiling archly—every male must be a conquest.

Kate glanced quickly at Alex and as quickly away from the bleak look on his face. Tom was bending over Pam's hand, making flattering observations, and she was shrieking with delight.

Kate found that she was clutching her glass tightly and when Alex put out his hand for it his long fingers lightly touched hers. All her feelings of awareness were so heightened that the blood seemed to sing in her ears and she couldn't look at him. She knew that she was behaving like any teenager with a crush but she seemed unable to handle the situation. It had been so long since she had been possessed by this foolish
illusory magic and part of her didn't want it. Life was complicated enough as it was. She should have stuck to her guns and, knowing that Alex and Pam had been invited, simply stayed away. It was all so much more controllable at the shop.

She released the glass but he didn't move. She was going to have to look at him but she knew she simply mustn't. And then Cass was there, wonderful beloved Cass, sweeping up, dragging Tony with her, breaking things up.

Alex went to get some drinks and Kate looked at Tony. He grinned at her. ‘Long time no see.'

She nodded and then began to laugh. Her nerves were on edge and somehow she simply couldn't stop laughing.

‘What's so funny?' Tony, infected by her laughter, was smiling.

‘You are. Read any good books lately?'

‘Books?'

‘What are you talking about?' Cass, having abandoned Pam to Tom, was back.

‘Books,' said Kate. ‘I was just about to tell Tony that Tom's grown up a bit since we were all at
Dolphin
. This time you'll have to do better than
The Wind in the Willows.'

All through that summer, Kate held the twins as a shield between her and any possible developments in her relationship with Alex. After the barbecue, she adopted the attitude of one who was in a permanent rush: rushing in, having taken the twins to Cass; rushing home, so as to pick them up to take them to the beach or for a picnic; rushing out at lunchtime, to buy something for their supper. Guy was struck by a whole series of Arthur Ransom's books—he adored the water and boats—and Kate was overwhelmed when Alex presented the set to him for his eleventh birthday. To Giles he gave two charming pen and ink sketches of the old town of Dartmouth, suitably framed. Kate was speechless and gave thanks that her own thirty-first birthday in August had passed in a well-kept silence. Fortunately, Alex had been away a great deal at that time, buying and attending auctions, and Kate's furious threats to the twins should they so much as breathe a word about it were almost unnecessary.

She was horrified to find that, even with the twins for company, she missed Alex most dreadfully. His presence, even when it was casting her into fits of apprehension, had become necessary to her well-being. She missed the companionable chats, the shared excitement of newly discovered books and prints, the occasions when they shut the shop at lunchtime and strolled over to the Bedford for sandwiches and beer.

The evening of the barbecue had changed all that. Tacitly, certain things had been admitted and Kate knew that Alex was only biding his time before making a further move. She spent hours trying to decide
whether she wanted him to: she really knew so little about him. He was very popular, so much was obvious. There were always women telephoning and asking for him and some of them came into the shop. He was in great demand as a spare man and as an escort—and, she was sure, more—to the little clique of divorced women, one of whom was Pam. Kate was well aware that her arrival at the shop had been greeted with interest and even suspicion and Pam and a few others were making sure that she didn't trespass on their territory. Certainly, there had never been any sign of anyone staying with him at the flat, even overnight, and she had seen no evidence of feminine habitation when she had gone to collect some new stock which Alex kept in a room upstairs.

She blushed when she remembered how she had tiptoed along the carpeted passage, peering into his other rooms, one ear cocked lest he should come upstairs. The flat was one floor of a Victorian house, high-ceilinged and airy, the rooms opening off a long passage. Kate had taken in as much as she could in the brief time allowed her: a large bedroom furnished with almost austere sparseness—but containing a double bed!—with built-in hanging cupboards, a heavy mahogany chest of drawers—no photographs!—a bentwood rocking chair and a bedside table piled high with books: a delightful sitting room, the pale walls almost papered with water colours, more built-in cupboards on either side of a pretty Victorian fireplace and several huge, comfortable armchairs: a small bathroom with shaving things in evidence—no creams or lotions!—and a very masculine dressing gown tossed over a wicker laundry basket: a practical kitchen with a breakfast bar and two high stools, with a row of cacti on the window sill. The only other room contained the stock and, gathering up her requirements, Kate had hurried back downstairs conscious of Alex's quizzical look when she reached the bottom. Later, it had occurred to her that he had suggested that she should go upstairs—usually he went himself—so that she could check it out and the thought made her blush in earnest.

Poor Kate. Even her beloved moor betrayed her that summer. The
drought transformed it into a huge scorched wasteland over which the sun hung, a burning ball of brass. Cracks and fissures opened in the ground, the streams dried up and the ponies and panting sheep crowded under the few areas of shade that remained in that shimmering, pitiless glare. Even the skylarks seemed to have lost heart and only the ravens were in evidence, strutting over the parched grasslands, their stiff-legged gait slow and purposeless, before taking aimlessly to the airless heights, their wings flapping with a slow dispirited beat.

Kate took to walking very early and very late but even then there was no respite from the inexorable heat. She was grateful for the cool of her thick-walled cottage and for the first time let the Rayburn out and had to buy a small camping stove. It was too hot to eat much and she and the twins spent a great deal of the summer lying beneath the apple trees in the garden, grateful for their shade. Even the beach, shadeless and glaring, with the sea, blazing like a mirror beneath the near white sky, was no place to be in this weather.

As the lack of water became a serious problem, the locals began to resent the tourists who poured down on holiday, using up precious resources and starting fires in their carelessness, and for many it was almost a relief when the heat wave came to an end and the rain fell.

C
ASS WAS ONE OF
the few who would have liked the sunshine to go on for ever. Lazing happily and wearing as little as possible in her large cool house and shady garden, she managed to conduct an affair with Tony right through the summer and under the noses of her family and friends. Even the heat conspired with her.

Deceiving Tom, who was away at Northwood from Monday to Friday, wasn't difficult and, indeed, she almost looked upon it now as a necessity as much for his benefit as for hers. Over the years she had managed to persuade herself that it was her little flings that kept her happy and contented in his absence. Thus there was no strain on the marriage from the separations or possible loneliness and when Tom arrived home it was to be met with a loving wife ready to minister to all his wants. She uttered no recriminations or complaints—difficulties and
traumas were related as huge jokes—and a blind eye was turned to any little philanderings of his that filtered down to her through the grapevine. Some wives who were jealous of Cass's beauty and success, and whose husbands were serving with Tom, were only too happy to let some little remark slip. Hastily they would pretend to gloss over or withdraw it, hoping, nevertheless, that the tiny dart of poison would find its mark. Generally, and to their chagrin, it would be met by a smiling Cass who dealt with it at once by a light remark. ‘I'm so glad that my dear old boy's enjoying himself.'