First Friends (28 page)

On their way home, Ralph and Harriet had a row: a silly affair that blew up out of nothing. Ralph had enjoyed his evening and said so. He
enthused about the Wivenhoes, their home, the food, and went on at some length about what a great chap old Tom was, remarking more than once about how glad he was to see Harriet getting on with him so well.

At last Harriet, more infatuated by Tom than ever and torn by feelings of irritation and guilt, snapped at him, saying that it was a pity that he couldn't have sat by Tom himself if he liked him so much and that he seemed to be doing very well with Abby.

Ralph was shocked into a surprised silence and after a moment or two decided to be hurt rather than finding out what, if anything, lay behind this rather uncharacteristic outburst. He had had just enough to drink to feel pleasantly martyred and when one or two other things of a cutting nature had been said on either side, they both subsided into silence. Ralph's was a surly resentful silence: Harriet's a guilty desperate one. They went to bed—each pointedly on his and her own side—still in silence, Ralph to fall at once into a heavy sleep whilst Harriet lay beside him across the icy sheet, staring into the darkness and wishing she were dead.

L
IZ TRIED TO IGNORE
her heavy heart and chattered to a silent Tony on the way back to Plymouth. When he stopped outside her flat, he looked at her properly for the first time that evening and felt the prickings of guilt. He was surprised at how upset he'd been to realise that his affair with Cass was over. They'd been friends for years and he knew the score and had been as happy with the arrangement as she had. Why then did he feel jealous and miserable?

He looked at Liz—a little brown girl: brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair—who was always prepared, even at disgracefully short notice, to be used as a stop gap and smiled at her.

‘Sorry, Liz,' he said. ‘What a lout I'm being and what an angel you are to put up with me. I suppose there wouldn't be a cup of coffee if I came in?

Liz's spirits soared and she smiled at him with such radiance that her plain little face was quite transformed. Taken aback and seized
with an even greater sense of remorse and also with a confused feeling of paying Cass out, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly and with great expertise. Her arms went round him and he began to feel more than the prickings of guilt.

‘Come on,' he said, his lips against her hair. ‘Let's go inside.'

As Cass embarked upon her affair with Stephen Mortlake, so Kate plunged into hers with Alex. She had been right in saying that once she started she would be unable to stop. Constitutionally unable to do anything by halves, she started the relationship with a whole-heartedness with which she had begun her marriage with Mark. It was as if she had been living in another world for the last twelve years, a sort of limbo existence, which had suddenly shattered leaving her free. She spent every available moment with Alex, revelling in the new freedom which had the effect of a powerful drug. Physically she was indeed drugged by his power over her body. If it had begun as a friendship, a meeting of minds, it was now balancing out with a vengeance. Having known only unsatisfying sex with an insensitive man, she now learned what making love was all about. And she simply couldn't get enough of it. Night and day she burned for the physical contact of a man whom she loved and desired, knowing that her passion was fully reciprocated. Love-making was a leisured, happy, earth-moving experience and Kate was totally disorientated.

Alex was moved, amused and delighted in turns. However, he was still cautious about pushing her into anything and recognised that she needed a period of freedom to enjoy what they shared as herself, Kate, rather than to have to think of herself in connection with the twins or Mark.

For a few blissful weeks this was the case and then the twins came home for Christmas and Kate returned to earth with a bump. The real
difficulties of the situation now presented themselves forcibly to her and Alex waited to see how she would react. To begin with, they could spend far less time together and certainly not at night. The dogs had often proved a bit of a problem here and since Kate had preferred, during week nights, to be in Alex's flat rather than at the cottage, Megs and Honey had got used to sleeping at the flat and being taken for early-morning runs on the moor on Kate's way home. They were obliging, good-natured dogs and had settled quite happily to this new routine. At weekends Alex came to the cottage. Up to this point, Kate had been fairly relaxed about being seen in public with him. In Tavistock it was accepted as a working relationship and with the dark winter evenings hurrying everyone indoors, it was unlikely that anyone would be around at the crucial moments to see Kate's car still parked in a back road or to see her emerging very early to take the dogs for a run before she hurried home. She would reappear at the usual time to start work and no one was the wiser. They were never disturbed at the cottage and it had been one of the happiest times of Kate's life.

Now, driving the twins home across a sullen sodden moor, brooding under heavy rain clouds, Kate realised that her brief visit to paradise was over. She listened to their chatter and answered their questions whilst trying to imagine herself explaining the situation to them. She had been fairly certain that the separation from Mark would not be distressing for them. The visit to Cheltenham had not been a happy one and Mark had felt it necessary to try to belittle Kate in their eyes and had been short-tempered; Kate was glad that she had never criticised him to them or justified her own actions. She knew that she had no need to, Mark was more than capable of doing all that was needed himself. An affair with Alex or a divorce were quite different issues. She had heard that the twins' headmaster had decided views on the subject of divorce and she knew that the boys would hate being both the objects of discussion and in the minority. So far as she knew, there was only one divorced couple with a boy at the school. No, divorce was quite out of the question, even if Mark agreed to it. And on what grounds would it
be? Her infidelity with Alex, thereby proving that Mark and the gossips had been right after all? Would she be allowed to keep the boys if she had been committing adultery? Maybe they would be put in Mark's care, living with the Websters while he was at sea. Her hands, gripping the wheel, turned icy at the thought. She saw herself in court under Mark's cold disgusted gaze and shivered: out of the question until the boys had finished school or at least left Mount House.

So then, did she explain to the boys that she loved Alex and that she was having an affair with him? How would they react? Somehow it seemed quite impossible. She tried to imagine herself with Alex, laughing, talking, hugging, kissing—with the boys looking on. It simply didn't work. They would still see each other, of course. Cass would continue to look after the twins some days whilst Kate went to the shop and maybe Alex could come round from time to time. The twins liked him and were used to seeing him. They'd just have to be very careful. The boys simply must not suspect. And nor must anyone else. It struck her for the first time that Mark could all but destroy her if everything came out and she felt her old fears returning. Thank goodness she worked for Alex and that he lived above the shop. At least, during the working day, they could continue to live and love.

Kate caught herself thinking that, for the first time ever, the school holidays were going to seem very long indeed!

C
ASS WAS HAVING HER
own problems. Stephen was proving to be a rather demanding lover, prone to turning up unexpectedly on weekdays and telephoning at unsuitable moments. He had fallen very heavily for Cass, finding her light-hearted attitude, her great beauty and amazing generosity a complete contrast to what he was used to from his own wife. He fell for her hook, line and sinker and simply had no idea how an affair of this sort should be conducted. Cass was flattered, amused and then concerned. She had made the fatal mistake of assuming that his anxiety lest his old bat of a wife should discover his infidelity would encourage him to exercise restraint. But this was not the case. After a few visits he was pleading that they should throw caution to the
winds and set up home together. Cass, torn between a desire to shriek with laughter and very real terror that he might drop her right in it, pointed out that she had no intention of abandoning her four children or Tom and that if he didn't calm down, she wouldn't see him again. This brought him to his senses but he was still unreliable and Cass, feeling that for once she had seriously misjudged the situation, was deeply relieved when Christmas approached and Stephen was obliged to return to Alverstoke to the bosom of his family.

A
LEX HAD TO BE
content with the days Kate spent in the shop. He missed her very much and felt it very hard that his feelings must be put on a back burner. He knew quite well that it was the only way and, being far more intelligent than Stephen, was prepared to wait patiently for the time being. Kate's surprised gratitude for his love, his patience, his good humour and concern for her well-being gave Alex a very good idea of what she had been used to with Mark and he experienced, from time to time, a desire to seek him out and wring his neck. Alex, who liked women and made a great effort to understand them, knew that Kate would put the twins first all the time that they were dependent on her for their happiness and he was trying not to make her feel guilty about it. He did not approve of emotional blackmail and since he saw that Kate was always ready to take guilt to herself—as he suspected Mark had been quick to notice and very ready to exploit—he made every effort to keep their relationship free of it. At least the boys were away at school. They must be grateful for what they had.

I
N THE
N
EW
Y
EAR
, the ripples had turned into little waves big enough to rock a few boats.

When Tony got back from sea there was a letter waiting for him from Liz asking if he would get in touch. He was faintly surprised for it was generally he who did the running but he turned up at the flat a few days later, on a mild February afternoon, and Liz let him in. It was a very pleasant flat in an Edwardian terrace: one big bedroom, one big
living room, a small kitchen and a bathroom. It was on the ground floor and there was a little courtyard area outside the French windows. The decorations were simple, almost austere, and in her favourite colours, white and a sharp lemon with touches of cool green. It was a very restful place. Tony sank into the corner of the big white sofa and looked at her. She looked pinched and tired but she poured him his favourite Scotch and smiled at him.

‘Good trip?'

‘So so. What's all this about? You look a bit fagged.'

‘I am a bit.' She rested an arm along the white-painted mantelshelf and stared down at the electric fire that had been fitted into the grate. ‘It's no use prevaricating. I've been practising how to say this and there's no easy way. I'm pregnant.'

From the corner of her eye she saw his shocked reaction. After a moment Tony set his drink carefully on the low glass coffee table.

‘Is it mine?' he asked and immediately felt ashamed.

Liz straightened up and looked directly at him. ‘I've only ever been with you,' she said simply.

‘I'm sorry,' he said at once. ‘That was unforgivable. It's just a bit of a shock. I'm sorry.'

‘It was after Cass's party,' she explained. ‘You may remember that we . . . well, we got a bit carried away and we didn't use anything.'

‘I remember.' Tony felt a savage blast of bitterness against Cass, followed by remorse for having used as her stand-in the girl who stood before him. ‘Well, we must think about this, mustn't we?'

If she had hoped for more from him, she didn't show it but continued to look at him. ‘I shan't have an abortion,' she said quietly. ‘I just want to tell you that. I haven't told my parents yet. I thought that it was only fair to tell you first.'

Tony looked quickly at her to see if there was any hint of blackmail but she continued to regard him steadily.

‘Yes.' Tony thought about her father, a serving Rear Admiral who, much against his will, had set Liz up in her own little flat so that she could finish taking her accountancy exam's in peace and quiet and
without too much travelling. Tony felt his heart sink and the bars begin to close in. ‘Look, can you give me a minute or two to think this over? Get my bearings, as it were?'

‘Of course. I realise that it's come as a dreadful shock to you. I've had time to think it over.'

Tony imagined her, all alone, coming to terms with it over the past weeks and his heart smote him. What a bastard he was! He'd used her as a smoke screen through the long hot summer of his affair with Cass and again afterwards in his hurt at Cass's defection. She loved him, he knew that, giving everything that she had and asking nothing in return. He stood up and went to her and gathered her rigid body into his arms.