Читать книгу Fallen Women - Sue Welfare - Страница 10

‘For someone so small you weigh a bloody ton.’ The words, hissed between gritted teeth, sounded far grumpier than Kate had intended but then again she was sweating and fighting for breath having struggled down Church Hill, steering Maggie in a wheelchair, trying very hard to avoid letting her mother roll off the kerb and under passing juggernauts. Controlling a wheelchair was a lot harder than Kate had anticipated; they’d been out of the house less than ten minutes and she was totally knackered. Maybe flat shoes would have been a better choice rather than the little kitten heels sandals that she was wearing.

Kate had been home about an hour. Once she had recovered from her encounter with Andrew and finished the unpacking and bedmaking, Kate rapidly realised that if they didn’t do something she would probably end up asking Maggie about Guy or alternatively telling her about Joe and Chrissie, and she didn’t feel ready to do either.

A walk, that was what she decided they needed, get Maggie out in the air, must be awful to be cooped up in the house all day with just four walls to look at. Kate paused; who the hell was she trying to kid? It sounded like bliss to have a few days on the sofa with a pile of magazines, with nothing to do and no one to disturb you.

Watching Joe drive away that morning, before going back inside to wake the boys, Kate had wondered if he had arranged to meet Chrissie somewhere. Maybe they had met up for breakfast. Had he grinned and waved, hurried across some road somewhere to join her for croissants and coffee?

Chrissie would be hurting like hell, Kate thought, as she manoeuvred Maggie down the drop kerb and across the traffic lights. She and Chrissie had been friends for years, which made everything worse than impossible. How the hell could she be having an empathic response for the woman who had been sleeping with her husband? A woman who had betrayed all those sacred arcane laws about shagging your best friend’s bloke?

Kate could guess exactly how Chrissie would be feeling and there was part of her, against all the odds, that felt really sorry for her. It was impossible not to think about all the things they’d done together, as families, as a couple, as friends; it seemed just so unlikely, so impossible and so bloody unfair that all that time Joe and Chrissie had been holding on to this huge secret thing. They knew and Kate didn’t. It gave her the most awful sick feeling.

Did Joe and Chrissie look at each other while they were all together, while they were on holiday together, while the kids were playing cricket on the beach, or at a barbecue, and long to be alone? Did they brush past each other in the kitchen, and smile knowingly while Kate was outside turning the beefburgers; did they talk about her when they were in bed together? Had they got secret jokes and magic words that she had heard and yet never recognised?

She and Chrissie had often talked about sex, life, kids. Kate couldn’t think of a single area of life where they hadn’t been in conversation. Years before, over a coffee, or maybe a bottle of wine, Kate had told Chrissie, amongst a million other things, how Joe had once grabbed her in the kitchen, dragging her off for a quickie in the coal shed where they stored the bikes. How they’d screwed like rattlesnakes, giggling and half cut, trying so very hard not to make too much noise, while Kate’s parents and the kids were sitting inside waiting for them to dish up Christmas dinner. What was it Chrissie had thought as Kate had been telling her? Had she been there too? Stolen moments while Kate had been somewhere else, patiently waiting? Had it been better for her or worse?

Kate felt cold fingers track up and down her spine; a person could easily drive herself mad thinking about this stuff. She was so deep in thought Kate had almost totally forgotten about Maggie.

‘You were the one who suggested it would be nice to walk into town.’ Maggie sounded tense. ‘Guy thought it would be a good idea to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital. He took me down the pub for lunch yesterday.’

Kate snapped back to the present; good for bloody Guy. There was no way she could possibly compete with the bronzed boy wonder. Pushing the wheelchair was like trying to steer a human shopping trolley. Kate glanced over her shoulder wondering how the hell she was ever going to get Maggie back up the hill.

As if she could read her mind, Maggie said, ‘Kate, instead of struggling like this why don’t you park me over there under the trees and go back and fetch the car? I don’t mind. We could have a sandwich at home if you like? I’ve got loads of food in. Guy felt so guilty about leaving me he’s laid in enough for a siege.’

‘No, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’ Kate did her best to sound brisk and capable. ‘Now where did you say you wanted to go?’

Which was a stupid thing to ask because up until a quarter of an hour ago Maggie had been happily reading on the sofa with no desire to go anywhere whatsoever.

There was a pause and then Maggie, in that same kind of oh well we’re here now better get on with it way, said, ‘We could drop into the bookshop if you like. You can meet everyone, and then we could find somewhere for a late lunch – the brasserie? I’m sure they would be pleased to see I’m still alive. My treat.’

‘Sounds fine, although when we get back I really must get on with some work,’ Kate said, implying that coming home to Maggie’s had dragged her away from something vitally important.

Maggie nodded. ‘Okay. Did I tell you I’m thinking about remodelling the garden later this year? We’ve drawn it up and measured it. I’ve promised myself that while Guy’s away I’ll go through all those gardening magazines and books I’ve got. It’s really nice to have someone to plan things with again and he loves gardening –’ Kate could hear the enthusiasm in her mother’s voice and didn’t know what to say, but it appeared that she wasn’t expected to say anything, as Maggie continued, ‘I thought I’d do some textural things – cobbles, gravel and water. I’ve seen this wonderful water feature that was built into the top of a brick wall; you end up with this thin, rather elegant stream, dropping over different levels and then being pumped back. And then –’ Using her hands for emphasis Maggie started to wax lyrical about patios and pots and pools as Kate braced herself against the handles of the chair. ‘Maybe we could go to the local garden centre some time while you’re here? I’ve been thinking about building a pergola; Guy is very good with his hands.’

Kate decided not to comment.

In a funny way, Guy or no Guy, it was a relief to see Maggie so animated. This was the woman Kate thought about when she visualised her mother, self-contained, joy-filled, always with some scheme or project on the boil. It was reassuring that things weren’t so far out of kilter after all. Instead of playing nursemaid Kate could let go and give her mum some space. Part of her, she realised, felt that she was obligated to amuse and entertain and generally be with her mum all the time. For as long as she could remember Kate had never felt that way about Maggie.

Although, said the rogue voice in her head, wasn’t that the main reason she had volunteered to come back home? While protesting she needed time and space to think, wasn’t Kate really hoping that nursing Maggie would take her thoughts away from Joe and Chrissie, that somehow, in her absence, all those things that were broken would miraculously heal themselves?

While her mind was busy having an argument with itself, Kate steered the wheelchair in through the gates of the Memorial Playing Fields, a short cut into the town. After the rigours of Church Hill and the dash across the traffic lights before they changed, it was also blessedly flat and totally traffic-free.

The cricket pavilion was still there, where once upon a time, a long time ago, Kate had curled up against the peeling paintwork and smoked her very first cigarette. Head spinning, she had wondered why anyone in their right mind would ever want to smoke and then a few minutes later lit another one to see if she could pin it down.

It wasn’t the only rite of passage marked there. On the boundary of the cricket pitch, under a stand of copper beech, was the bench where she had her first real snog. It was with a boy in the form above her. Kate fished around for his name and found it tucked away under a pile of other dusty, neglected memories: Alan Hart. They’d had several half-hearted attempts on the walk home from school, but because he was so much taller than she was, to make it work he’d had to stoop while she stood on tiptoes. It wasn’t pretty. It most certainly wasn’t sexy.

So, by mutual agreement, they had taken a detour through the park, and found a bench somewhere over there under the trees. He had put his arms around her and pulling Kate close had kissed her with closed, dry lips, pressing his face hard up against hers, furiously, hungrily, as if he might be burrowing for something.

Kate smiled. For an instant the memory was so vivid that she could almost smell him, remembering a boyish mix of sweat and Brut. It made her shiver, how could it be that she had forgotten Alan for all these years? Glancing across the grass Kate wouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised to see a younger version of herself, entwined around Alan Hart, all arms and legs and inhibitions, despite having the waistband of her school skirt rolled over to show an extra couple of inches of leg. Kate tried hard to conjure up his face, but could only manage a long shot of him loping towards her across the playing field, hands stuffed in the pockets of his parka, shoulders slightly hunched against some long gone breeze.

By the end of the summer they had progressed to kissing with tongues and him alternately trying to undo her blouse and get his hand up her skirt. It was around then that Kate decided that whatever it was Alan was trying to do he wasn’t the one she wanted to do it with and called it a day. With the robust survivalism of youth she’d gone on to have a crush on a boy in the sixth form, while Alan, she seemed to remember, had been very upset and bombarded her with notes and cards.

What had happened to him since then? Did he ever think about her? Did he think about them walking hand in hand on the way home? Did her blame her still? Kate stared at the benches wondering what it was they had talked about then? What did they know then?

Unexpectedly, her eyes filled up with tears. The wind that rippled her hair did the same to the canopy of the trees overhead so that the sunlight dappled the tarmac ahead of the wheelchair, making it look as if Maggie and Kate were walking through a babbling, bubbling brook.

‘I’m so pleased you’re home, love,’ said Maggie, breaking into Kate’s train of thought and through the wave of melancholy that threatened to engulf her. ‘Seems a long time since you and I have had a chance to talk.’

Kate slowed down, wondering if they had ever really talked at all.

‘I know you’re busy,’ Maggie was saying.

‘But?’

‘But nothing, I just wanted to say thank you for coming. I’d have had a hell of a job managing on my own if you weren’t here.’

It was almost more than Kate could bear, she’d come to Denham under false pretences.

Without turning, Maggie continued, ‘So do you want to talk about it?’

Kate swallowed hard; was she so transparent? What was she supposed to say?

‘It?’

There was a small silence when Kate realised that she was fooling no one and made an effort to control the little tic under her eye and the other one that threatened to make her voice quiver and break. ‘Not really, it’s just one of those things. Joe and I are going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. That’s all.’ Kate spoke slowly, holding tight to her emotions in case they caught her by surprise and spilt out. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she added with a surety she most definitely didn’t feel.

Maggie craned around in the chair and caught her gaze. Maggie didn’t actually say that she didn’t believe a word, but Kate thought she saw it in Maggie’s expression.

‘I’m not going to drag out it out of you, Kate. Every generation thinks that they invented sex, lies, all that stuff, that they’re the only ones who have ever gone through anything, but it’s not true. We all struggle sometimes and however unlikely it sounds somebody has always been that way before.’

‘Should I be writing this down? Is that the good mother lecture?’

Maggie laughed, ‘I wouldn’t be that presumptuous. But I think you need to talk to someone about whatever it is that’s eating you up. Your face is full of it, Kate.’

It was a deeply perceptive thing to say and made Kate’s skin prickle. She just hoped Maggie didn’t suggest she ring Chrissie. People always told her that Maggie was wise and funny and good company and although Kate had kind of known that, walking across the playing field was the first time she had truly felt it or appreciated the power of it in a long time.

‘Knowing what’s right and doing it are two very different things. Making choices, knowing what you want and what is worth saving and what it’s better to let go of – even the best marriages can be bloody hard work at times,’ Maggie continued.

Kate held her breath, wondering where the conversation was going to go next. It was one thing to get a glimpse of her mother as a real person – which was disturbing enough – but quite another to look with seeing eyes at her parents’ marriage.

There was a pause and then Maggie said thoughtfully, ‘Although if I were you I wouldn’t say anything to Liz, not that I suppose you would, but she always enjoyed high-octane dramatics. You must remember what she was like when she didn’t want to go to school? Flinging herself on the sofa, wailing like a banshee,’ Maggie laughed. ‘I always thought Liz would end up on the stage rather than the civil service.’

There was a moment’s silence; a moment of mutual remembering, and then Kate said, ‘Liz told me that Guy was your lodger.’

This time they both laughed.

The people in the bookshop were delighted to see Maggie. They insisted Maggie and Kate stayed for coffee and then wrote risqué things on Maggie’s cast while asking after Guy, how she was coping, everyone promising to drop by bearing gifts and gossip.

‘I feel really guilty about this, I was the one who insisted we had another round of cocktails,’ said Taz, handing Kate a mug of decaf. Taz had cropped hennaed hair, creamy white skin and a nose ring, and couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five. She was also the bookshop manager.

Maggie laughed. ‘Oh come on, Ginge, you didn’t exactly force me to drink it, and one more round wasn’t going to make any difference. I should have known better; it’s that cocktail trick – they don’t taste very alcoholic. But don’t worry, we were short-staffed before this, so you’ll have lots and lots of opportunities to work off any residual guilt.’

Taz laughed as Maggie wheeled herself over towards the gardening section.

‘It’s nice to meet you at long last,’ said Taz warmly, turning her attention to Kate. ‘Maggie is always talking about you and the boys. You look a lot like her. She’s very proud of you, you know, successful businesswoman, kids, house and all that jazz. Must be nice to be self-employed, set your own schedule. How long are you staying in Denham?’

‘Just till the end of the week, until Guy gets home,’ said Kate, sipping her coffee

Taz smiled a broad predatory smile, ‘Yum, yum, yum. Isn’t he just the cutest little thing? It’s such a shame he’s into older women.’ She glanced across at Maggie. ‘I can’t believe that your mum wouldn’t marry him, she must be crazy to turn a man like that down. I mean, mad or what? If he’d asked me, Christ, I’d have snapped him up and dragged him off squealing to the back of the cave.’

Kate felt the breath catch in her throat but she smiled, turned away quickly, and took another sip of coffee as if her complete attention had just been grabbed by the pile of cut-price hardbacks featuring World War Two bombers, which were stacked up on the table beside them. It gave her just enough time to try and compose herself. When she looked back at Taz, Kate had fixed on what she hoped was a, ‘well, of course Mum and I tell each other everything because we’re very close and I support her decision wholeheartedly,’ expression, while her mind struggled to work out what the hell was going on. It felt as if her whole life had transformed into one of those intricate domino games where the first one is pushed over and sets off a complex and confusing chain reaction.

She glanced round the shop; Maggie was still parked up in the gardening section and laughing with one of the other sales staff. She looked great when she laughed.

Taz was still talking, while Kate made every effort to keep a grip, looking for something, anything to hold on to. It seemed as if everything she had known and believed to be true for most of her adult life had suddenly all shifted and was still moving. Maggie breaking her ankle had been the spark that had lit a fuse on the bomb that had blown her world apart.

How long would the Chrissie and Joe thing have gone undiscovered if Maggie hadn’t fallen down? How long before Maggie would have spilt the beans about Guy if Kate hadn’t driven home? Struggling to pull her mind away from the flames that threatened to engulf it Kate had a fleeting vision of Maggie and Guy standing by a Christmas tree in the hall, arm in arm, elegant newlyweds, hosting some fictional family get-together. They were barely able to keep their hands off each other. Kate shivered – Maggie was wearing a wedding dress and veil. Guy was wrapped in a small white fluffy bath towel. Kate closed her eyes, trying to wipe the image off her retina only to find it was immediately replaced by an equally vivid picture of Joe and Chrissie sitting hand in hand at her kitchen table. Chrissie was wearing Kate’s dressing gown and a bridal veil. ‘It’s not what you think, Kate,’ Joe was saying.

Kate sighed. The storm clouds pressing down inside her head had been gathering there since finding them together. Everything else that was happening in her life seemed to be being played out against the sense of an even greater storm brewing.

Instinctively, Kate knew that that sensation would follow her and be with her and to some extent alter the way she behaved and thought and reacted until the situation with Joe was resolved – and somewhere in that resolution her life would change for ever. Which sounded a bit melodramatic but then again Kate thought ruefully, picking up one of the books on the display, her sister Liz didn’t have the monopoly on high drama.

‘Oh, do you like him? Have you read the new one?’ Taz was busily waving another copy of the book in her direction. ‘We had him in last week, this is a signed copy if you’re interested.’ It was only then that Kate realised with a start that she’d been holding a conversation without actually being aware of a single word.

Denham had barely changed in the years since Kate had left home. The main streets and marketplace were mostly Georgian with a strong Dutch influence shaping the roof lines and plaster work; if you glanced up above the modern shop fronts and brightly painted facades it didn’t take much to pick out the handsome symmetrical lines of an older time.

Walking along the High Street, Kate realised that even if she hadn’t come to stay with Maggie, her mother had more than enough friends and people who loved and cared about her to ensure she didn’t starve or die of neglect while Guy was away. It was heartwarming and at the same time a bit threatening to be greeted every hundred yards or so by all manner of faces, remembered, half remembered, known and unknown.

The sun shone, the people smiled and gossiped and asked solicitously after Maggie’s health. It felt as if they were making some kind of royal progress. Kate had completely forgotten what it was like to live amongst people who knew you and your family and each other in a loose, overlapping web of emotional connections.

The people who had watched her grow up still ran and worked in a lot of the shops. Kate resisted the temptation to run through them on her internal check list, wondering whether too much sentiment was bad for the health.

The other thing that struck her was that people seemed to have the time to linger, that frantic metropolitan pulse that had her rushing across roads and hauling Maggie up kerbs was totally lost on the people they met on the pavement. Denham just didn’t move that fast.

‘Kate? Kate, is that you? Kate? Cooooeeeeee. Over here! Kate!’

They were on their way towards the restaurant Maggie had suggested for lunch. Kate looked around and scanned the people close enough to have called out and didn’t recognise a single one of them, and then an extremely rotund woman in a lime-green floral sundress waved enthusiastically and scurried across the road towards them

‘Well, hello. Fancy seeing you here, how are things going?’ she asked warmly, looking Kate up and down. ‘You so look well. God, it’s so good to see you again.’

Kate smiled without committing herself, determined not to show herself up by admitting that she hadn’t got a clue who the woman was. Meanwhile she could feel her face screwing itself up while her brain scurried off to find a mug shot and details that fitted the evidence. It had to have something stored somewhere surely, after all Andrew Taylor had been in there. The woman certainly didn’t look like a loony and she most definitely knew Kate’s name.

Kate knew she was staring and gurning and grimacing and then some far distant penny dropped and she felt her mouth fall open. ‘Julie? Julie Hicks? Oh my God. It can’t be.’ She smiled with relief as much as recognition.

The last time she remembered seeing Julie had been on Leavers’ Day in, in – God knows how long ago it was. Back in those days Julie had been a 4′ 10″ pocket sized Goth weighing in at about five stone with lots of eyeliner and buck teeth.

Kate was tempted to say that she’d grown but before she could speak Julie grinned; at least she still had the buckteeth.

‘Took you long enough. I didn’t realise I’d changed that much, you look just the same as ever.’ Which was even more worrying as the last time they’d seen each other Kate was certain she’d had a brace, a very dodgy haircut, and a good crop of blackheads. Julie turned her attention to Maggie.

‘Hello, Mrs Sutherland. What on earth have you been up to? Maybe you ought to take more water with it.’

They all laughed politely at what passed for a joke in Julie’s neck of the woods and swapped where-are-they-now and why-we-were-there stories and then Julie said, ‘Actually, I’ve just moved back to Denham. We’ve bought one of the houses up in Berbeck Road, you know, on the little estate up behind the churchyard, Church Pines? Near the doctor’s? We’ve been in nearly a fortnight now, just long enough to let the dust settle.’

Maggie and Kate made approving noises as Kate was certain they were meant to. Berbeck Road was full of doctors and solicitors and men who did sensible things while wearing good suits.

‘And how about you?’ asked Julie pleasantly.

‘Home for a few days to give Mum a hand.’ Said that way it sounded almost saintly.

Julie nodded. ‘Oh right. Actually I’m really glad that I’ve seen you both. We’re having a house-warming party tomorrow evening. Why don’t you come along? It’s very informal, it won’t be very late as it’s a weeknight. It’s really for the girls; you know what kids are like. There’ll be loads of people there that you know.’

Kate was about to protest that there would be absolutely no one there that she knew when it occurred to her that Julie was talking to Maggie. She didn’t even have the wit to ask who ‘we’ was – husband, lover, kids, a cat?

‘Number 62, seven o’clock. It’ll be lovely to catch up.’ She looked back at Kate. ‘Is your husband staying here with you?’

Kate’s face must have answered for her because Julie said, ‘Job for them to get away, isn’t it? I just thought that if he was around you might like to bring him along with you. Extra pair of hands on the barbecue always welcome. Although these days you never know whether to say husband or not do you?’ she laughed conspiratorially. ‘Remember Pippa Rose?’

Kate didn’t have time to reply or even draw breath.

‘Pretty? Went to work in the Nat West? Travelled a lot. Long ginger hair. You must remember her. Good at games. Got her colours in the cross-country.’ Julie paused, waiting for Kate to catch up and then leaned forward and said conspiratorially, ‘Lesbian.’ And when they didn’t immediately say anything, continued, ‘I’d never have guessed. Nose ring, Doc Martens and everything.’

Kate would have laughed if Julie hadn’t looked so serious. ‘I was talking to her mother last week in the library.’

Which presumably assured the validity of the statement, thought Kate.

‘Still not come to terms with it.’

Kate wondered whether Julie meant Pippa or her mother.

Walking through town with Maggie, who appeared to be on first name terms with practically everyone they met, had made Kate sentimental for small town life, but at that moment she remembered just how claustrophobic and judgmental it could be. Nodding in a way that she hoped conveyed something appropriate Kate silently thanked the stars that had guided her away.

‘See you tomorrow night,’ Julie said, as she marched off towards Boots. Kate nodded and waved and made agreeable noises; not that there was a cat’s chance in hell that they were going to go.