Kate's Progress (2 page)

Gradually she had lowered her expectations, ceased to look for Mr Right and trawled instead for Mr OK-he’d-do. Gradually her wide eyes had narrowed. She and Lauren and Jess had tried, they really had. In between the multiplicity of dates that never got past the first or second meeting, and the endless-seeming fallow patches, and the ‘man diets’ when the three of them had sworn to give up altogether, she had had three long relationships.

The first had been Oliver, or Mean, Moody and Magnificent as Lauren had dubbed him. He came under the heading of emotionally unavailable: they dated, but he never told her how he felt about her, was sparing of embraces, would never talk about their relationship, could never be brought to make any future plan. If she pressed him for response he grew more distant, punished her by not seeing her or answering her calls for days. She’d be tearful and believe it was all over, and then he’d ring up with a perfectly viable excuse for his silence (usually work-related) and ask her out again.

It went on for the best part of two years, until one day he calmly told her that he was getting married to a girl he had known all his life, the daughter of friends of his parents, whose father, coincidentally, was a partner in the accountancy firm he was hoping to join.

He hadn’t even been two-timing her, so she had no excuse for face-saving fury. He had met this woman again by chance, and it had all happened very quickly. He had told Kate as soon as there was anything to tell. There was no deception.

And after all, he and Kate had never discussed marriage or any long-term plans, had they? It had been fun, that was all. He hoped they could remain friends.

It must have been a sort of rebound from Oliver that had led her to Andy. He was as emotionally available as a large, friendly puppy. He told her all the time that she was gorgeous, that he couldn’t believe his luck, was free with his hugs and kisses and compliments, wanted to see her as often as possible and, though he was not a great conversationalist, never minded her phoning him up at work for a chat – a frivolity definitely
verboten
by Oliver.

The trouble with Andy was that he came in a package with his large, exuberant friends, chief among whom were Steve, Mick, and Scrogger. He was a sports correspondent for a newspaper, and sport was his whole life, particularly football, which he played on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings with the aforesaid trio of mates. When he wasn’t playing it, he was attending football matches, or watching it on television or discussing it with his friends at the pub or on the sofa of her flat or his.

She tried to be interested in football, particularly at the beginning, and would stand on touchlines on freezing winter mud or with rain dripping from her nose, cheering as her breath formed clouds in front of her. Afterwards, in the pub, she learned to enjoy pints, and did her best to join in the conversation, comforted by Andy’s big, warm arm around her shoulders and his evident pride in having captured her. But it was hard work to sustain an interest in the exclusively male subjects (when it wasn’t sport, it was engines of one sort or another) and even harder work to get any comment she might make heard. They were all much taller than her (Andy called her ‘Pixie’, which she almost managed to like), and even if they did hear her, all the way down there, they would listen with a sort of embarrassed respectfulness, and then carry on as if she hadn’t spoken.

It was even harder work when there were four or five of them sprawled around the sitting room, beer cans in hand, watching the footy on the television. They took up so much space. They made so much noise. They were so complete unto themselves. They would say thank you nicely when she brought them snacks or more cans, but otherwise they would hardly have noticed the Second Coming while the match was on, and for a goodish time afterwards as they dissected it.

And the more she saw of it, the more Kate was convinced that soccer was the most boring game ever invented. Every match followed the same pattern as every other one. If it weren’t for the different strips, she reckoned the TV companies could have screened the same match over and over and saved themselves money – no-one would notice.

It was the approach of the World Cup that finally defeated her. She knew she could never survive it. And big, lovable, cuddly Andy – did he really distinguish all that much between her and his mates? He quite often said he loved her, but then he would say, ‘Love ya, ya big poof,’ to Steve and give him a bone-cracking one-armed hug, which was not dissimilar to his gestures of affection to her. He was a happy, friendly, simple soul, and he behaved much the same towards everyone.

And they rarely went out alone together. If they went to the pictures he would fall asleep, waking when the credits rolled to say, ‘Fancy a pint? Mick and Scrogger will be down the Red Lion.’ He didn’t like eating out: restaurant tables and chairs had not been designed for people his size, and he seemed almost ill at ease with cutlery. He was like a trapped bear. They sometimes went for a nice walk, but it always ended at a pub which seemed miraculously to be showing a match on the big screen. Clubbing was sheer cruelty to animals – he was too self-conscious to dance, and hated the noise, standing hunched and miserable by the bar with a beer in his hand saying, ‘No, you go on and dance. Don’t mind me. I want you to have fun,’ until she gave in and took him away. And then he’d say, ‘Fancy a pint? Steve’ll be down the Three Kings …’

When she broke it off, he looked puzzled and unhappy, like a puppy or a toddler that doesn’t know why it’s being scolded, and she’d felt like Cruella de Vil. She even heard herself say, ‘I hope we can still be friends.’ But she remembered the World Cup, and knew it had to be done.

Which led to Mark, her most recent relationship, and the one that really hurt. Mark was in the same business as her, PR, and she met him at a press conference for a movie in which they both had actors. The attraction had been instant. He was only moderately good-looking – the fact that he was not mega-handsome was somehow reassuring – but he made up for it in charm. He was smartly dressed, intelligent and funny. When he first caught her eye during a particularly dire speech and winked and gave her a great urchin grin, she felt as though they were the only two people in the world who knew what was what. She had taken her eye off him for a moment, and when she looked again he was easing his way through the crowd to get to her side. They watched the rest of the speeches together, and when they had to part, to attend to their own celebs, he had made a date with her with flattering urgency.

He was everything her previous boyfriends were not. He was great company; he made her laugh; more than that, he really listened when she talked to him, and seemed to like as much as she did those long telephone chats that go anywhere and nowhere. He’d send her funny and sometimes mildly obscene emails and texts when she was at work, which made her snort inelegantly, so she’d have to pretend she’d been sneezing.

He told her all the time how great she was, and made her feel that she was the only person in the world who mattered. He was generous: the best restaurants, taxis, good seats at the theatre, and flowers sent for no reason except ‘I was thinking ’bout you!’

He liked her friends – how rare was that? – and was interested in everything, always up for any outing or activity, whatever it was, from hang-gliding to a picnic in the park. He was a good dancer; he liked the same books and movies as she did. The sex was amazing, but he also loved to cuddle – how many men could you say that about?

Kate was deep in love. She hadn’t stood a chance, really, against such a pattern of a man. She was convinced he was The One. He was so perfect that Jess sighed and asked how Kate could be so lucky and where she could find one like him. Lauren called him Darcy – she always had sharp names for everyone. ‘He’s too good to be true,’ she said, and, ‘Handsome is as handsome does. We’ll see.’ But he made her laugh, and she liked him too, albeit grudgingly.

It was Lauren who pointed out one day that he and Kate always met at the girls’ flat, or went out – Kate had never been to his place.

‘So what?’ she said defiantly.

‘So nothing,’ Lauren said. ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

It was some days before Kate asked him – she hated herself for allowing Lauren to make her suspicious. She dropped it into the conversation casually one evening. ‘Why don’t we go back to your place tonight?’

He was not at all fazed. ‘We’re nearer to yours.’ They always were – he lived way down in South London.

‘But I’ve never even seen it,’ she said.

‘Nothing to see.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a bit of a tip. My flatmate’s a slob. We’ll be more comfortable at your place. But if you’re so curious …’

‘Oh, I’m not really,’ she said, feeling foolish. And when the time came they went back to the girls’ flat as always, and she didn’t press the point. If there had been anything wrong, he would have looked uneasy or acted guilty, and he hadn’t. And he’d said they could go to his place if she wanted. That proved it, didn’t it?

But Lauren had planted the seed, and as months passed it grew and festered in the back of her mind, spoiling her serenity. One day, hating herself for it, she went round to his address. He was away, gone to Amsterdam for a shoot, and she was missing him. She told herself it couldn’t hurt just to walk past, see what sort of a place it was. Why shouldn’t she? He knew everything about her, they were in love, he could have no secrets to keep. Just looking at his door would keep her going until he got back.

It wasn’t a flat; it was a narrow, modern townhouse. She hadn’t known that area of London before, but it was obviously quite smart – the sort of place young professionals were buying into, pushing it up the social ladder. She stood on the other side of the street staring at it, frowning, wondering. Maybe she’d made a mistake, written the address down wrong? But she was sure she hadn’t. She debated going across and ringing the bell, seeing if his ‘flatmate’ was in. But what would she say? She didn’t want to make a fool of herself. She was torn, in two minds, one half hating this ‘checking up on him’, the other half arguing that as his girlfriend she had every right to call at his address if she happened to be in the area.

And as she stood wrestling with internal debate, the door opened and out came a very smart, pretty Japanese woman, her make-up perfect, her short dark hair shining in the sun as though lacquered. She was leading two little half-Japanese boys, cute as buttons, immaculately dressed in what looked like Tommy Hilfiger for Kids. The elder one definitely had Mark’s nose.

The blood rushed from her head so fast she almost fell down, and had to clutch on to a car roof for support. Her mind gabbled with possible reasons and explanations, but her heart knew the truth from that moment.

He didn’t try to deny it, and she could never decide if that made it worse or not. That was Mariko. And his boys. Yes, he was married. He’d never said he wasn’t. What was the problem? He and Kate had fun, didn’t they?

‘You said you loved me.’

‘I do. You’re a gorgeous, gorgeous girl and I love you to bits.’

‘But I thought—’

That was the trouble. When she went over it in her mind,
what she
thought
had been made up of assumptions, which were entirely reasonable in the circumstances but were not based on anything he had said, only on the way he had
seemed
. The only lie he had told her was that his flatmate was messy. The house was not a flat and she could not believe from that glimpse that Mariko was anything but obsessively tidy. But when she taxed him with it, he said he
had
lived in a flat once, and his flatmate there
had
been a complete slob, so it wasn’t really a lie.

‘But it was a deception,’ she said.

‘Well, maybe a little. But you wouldn’t have liked to know the truth, so I was saving you from it. Haven’t we had nice times together?’

He must have known it was all over, because he became alarmingly frank. She wasn’t the only one: there was a Swedish woman, a pilot with Lufthansa, whom he saw when she had a layover in London. Or, on that particular occasion, Amsterdam. He didn’t see anything wrong with it. He kept them all happy, didn’t he? Hadn’t Kate been happy? As long as none of them knew about the others …

That was the trouble. She knew
now
. Her house of cards had come tumbling down. Not only was her heart broken, but she felt a fool – a trusting fool. If you were to be punished for believing in people, what point was there in any of it? She could not, would not see him again; but she missed him, and hated herself for missing him when he was such a swine, a creep, a hateful lying philandering bastard.

Lauren and Jess were brilliant, of course, rallied round, plied her with tissues and hugs and ever more savage epithets to describe the deceiver. Kate went from a state of shock into mourning, and when she was over the first acute pain of it, she knew she had to get out. She hated London, men, the dating scene, even her job, which reminded her of Mark (of course, how perfect a niche for him, to be a PR man!).

‘Don’t throw everything away,’ Lauren begged her. ‘Don’t let him ruin your whole life. Take a break, sure, but don’t cut off your nose to spite his face. I always thought it was a silly face,’ she added parenthetically. ‘Weak. Soft. Self-indulgent. I told you so at the time.’

‘Did you?’ Kate said, face swollen with tears. She didn’t remember. She only knew her twenty-eighth birthday was approaching and her lovely romance had turned to dust and ashes. Two years of Oliver, six months of Andy and just over a year of Mark. Three and a half of the best years of her prime given away for nothing. There had to be something better to do with your life than that.

It was at that low point, like a miracle, that Gaga, her darling grandmother in Ireland, had sent her the money.

The letter came as a complete surprise, the enclosure even more so.

You know I always meant to leave my fortune to you girls,
Gaga wrote,
at least the four of you, because if I left Denise anything she’d only give it to the convent, and you know how I feel about the nuns. But I was talking to the solicitor the other day and I suddenly thought, why wait till I’m dead? I’d get no joy out of that. I’m a selfish old woman and I want the pleasure of being thanked and hearing about all the fun you have with it. So here’s what I’m doing, Katie my pet. I’ve got the house, and Daddo’s pension is enough to live on, and all that cash he left me is doing nothing good in the bank. So I’m dividing it between you girls, and sending you each a cheque right now, on condition that you tell me all about what you spend it on. I want all the details, mind!