Читать книгу Fallen Women - Sue Welfare - Страница 8

‘Are you okay?’ said Guy, kissing Maggie gently on the forehead, careful to avoid the bruises and stitches.

She sighed, welcoming his touch. ‘Better now that Kate’s here.’

He stroked her hair back off her face. ‘Good. I’m sorry that she had to find out about us like this.’

Maggie jiggled to try and get herself comfortable. Despite the painkillers, she couldn’t find an easy spot to settle. ‘I’m not ashamed of you, Guy – I love you – and the last thing I want is to hide you away from my kids, but I needed to be sure before I told them.’

He grinned. ‘And you’re not?’

She snorted and shook her head. ‘It’s all academic now, isn’t it? I suppose even though they’re grown up, I’m still protecting them. But honestly, I’m glad Kate knows and I’m sure it’ll be fine. Really. Just give it a bit of time.’

‘Is there anything I can do to make it easier? I’d really like Kate to like me.’

Maggie grinned and settled her head down on his shoulder. ‘I don’t know – the usual stuff. Take her to the park, buy her a pony.’

Kate phoned home because she’d said she would. She rang Chrissie’s house first and when no one answered, she hung up before the machine cut in and rang her house instead.

‘Got there okay, then?’ Joe asked. He had always had a natural talent for stating the obvious.

‘Yep, I’m fine thanks, safely tucked up in bed with a nice mug of tea,’ Kate said with a heartiness she most certainly didn’t feel.

‘Right. Chrissie’s still here, we’re just finishing off the last of the Baileys. Do you want to talk to her?’

‘I’m packing the dishwasher,’ Chrissie said, when Joe handed her the phone. Joe sounded pissed, Chrissie didn’t, and God only knows where Bill had got to.

‘Mum’s okay,’ Kate said. ‘Bit bruised and battered.’

‘You don’t sound too good either.’

‘It seemed to take hours to get up here and to be honest I was knackered before I left,’ Kate hedged.

‘So have you rung the hospital?’

‘No need to. When I let myself in Mum was already here.’

‘Bloody hell, that’s awful. I didn’t think they’d discharge her if she hadn’t got anyone there to look after her.’

‘They didn’t – she has. His name’s Guy.’

‘A man? Her neighbour?’

‘Her boyfriend.’

‘Wow! You didn’t tell me she was seeing someone.’

‘Because I didn’t know and no, it’s not “wow”,’ snapped Kate. ‘He’s the same age as I am. Younger probably – with a tattoo.’ And then Kate told Chrissie all about meeting Guy, very quietly and very quickly, because she wasn’t sure if her voice would carry and if Mum and Guy could hear her from their room.

Curled up, warm and whispering in the gloom, her clothes neatly folded on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, wrapped in a duvet, Kate felt like a kid all over again, wondering if Mum and Dad could hear the radio. It was a disturbing sensation, sitting there in her old bed, staring at the same four walls that had surrounded her for the best part of her childhood.

Although at least her parents had had the decency to decorate the room since the whole Adam Ant, Duran Duran, New Romantic phase, thought Kate ruefully. It was cream now with a navy blue picture rail, and curtains and bedclothes to match, her shabby teenage skip-chic replaced by handsome reclaimed pine furniture. A large mirror hung on the wall where her giant poster of Spandau Ballet once was, although screwing her eyes up, Kate could just make out the heart shape on the back of the door, carved into the soft wood with a dead biro, where she’d pledged her undying love for Tony Hadley, Spandau’s tall dark lead singer, the one with the floppy hair. It took her a moment or two to realise she’d stopped talking and at the far end of the ether Chrissie was still listening.

‘So, I’ve decided to come home tomorrow.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Chrissie snorted. ‘You’ve only just got there. Bill, Joe and the boys are planning a pizza and video fest tomorrow night. Blood, gore and lashings of extra pepperoni. It’ll be like the Mutiny on the Bounty here if you come back before Monday at the earliest. Besides you’ve already said your mum wants you to stay. I think you ought to – everything is going just fine here. What’s she going to do next week when this guy Guy isn’t around?’

It wasn’t the question Kate particularly wanted to answer.

‘I don’t know, I haven’t even thought about it. I wish you could’ve seen him. He’s got a tan and works out. You don’t get a six pack by accident, and he’s in bed with my mother, a woman whose idea of exercise and a good time used to be throwing a stick for the family Labrador.’

Kate took a long pull on her tea.

‘My mother is sleeping with a man whose body is in better shape than any man I’ve ever been out with. A Chippendale is screwing my mother. My mother is having sex, for God’s sake.’

Wisely, Chrissie said nothing, so Kate continued in a hoarse whisper, ‘He calls her “Mags-baby”. There is just no way I can stay here with the pair of them, Chrissie. It’s sickening. He was dotting about making tea in his knickers. I’m going to tell them that I’ve spoken to you and that you need me to get back for the boys, and besides that I’ve got work to do – clients that I can’t possibly let down.’

‘Right.’ Chrissie didn’t sound convinced.

‘Chrissie, I’ve just driven up here, worried sick about what I’m going to find, all set to play Florence Nightingale, only to discover that when I wasn’t looking my mother transmogrified into Mrs Robinson. And I can’t believe that this guy Guy has moved in here with her without her saying so much as a word to either me or Liz.’

‘I read somewhere that the original Mrs Robinson was only about thirty-seven or thirty-eight.’

‘I’m thirty-eight,’ Kate hissed, ‘and I’ll tell you now I am certainly not Mrs Robinson material. My mother is fifty-eight. She should be making jam and doing yoga, going to evening classes to expand her mind not be, not be –’

‘In bed with some good-looking guy and his suntanned six pack?’ said Chrissie.

‘Exactly,’ hissed Kate.

Chrissie sighed. ‘Look. If it wasn’t your mother and I wasn’t meant to say how disgusted and horrified I am, which I obviously I am, I’d cheer and so would you. If you could just see beyond this whole mother daughter thing, you’d go out and buy a roll of bunting and a couple of bottles of fizzy pink plonk, celebrating the breaking down of sexual mores and God knows how many years of indoctrination and sexual repression.’

There was a long pause and then Kate said, ‘You’ve been reading Cosmo again, haven’t you?’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Chrissie.

‘Do? What do you mean, do?’

‘While Guy is away in Germany?’

‘He’s already said he’s going to cancel his trip.’

‘And you think she’ll let him?’

‘All right, all right – but I do have work to sort out and I can hardly leave the boys there with you all week, it’s not fair.’

‘Don’t worry, Joe and I will manage between us and Bill offered to lend a hand if the going gets tough. We’ll be fine. Honest. I’d stay where you are, at least over the weekend until you see how they manage. Oh and Kate –’

‘Yes?’

‘Enjoy the view.’

Kate snorted and as she said her goodbyes made up her mind to go home the next morning, whatever Chrissie said and come back again on Monday, if and when Guy flew off to wherever it was he was going.

While it was true nobody was going to die if Kate took the week off, all the projects she was working on did have a deadline. Kate was justifiably proud of her reputation for delivering on time, even – in the long distant past – if it meant composing copy while breast-feeding. Her job had paid the lion’s share of bills for years. If she really was going to be away for a few days, Kate ought to sort work out. All of which could have been done at her mum’s if she’d had the nous to pack the laptop. Once she had sorted out the justification for going home Kate began to relax.

As she switched off the bedroom light and settled down, she heard the bed squeaking across the hallway, which very briefly conjured up an image which was just too horrible to contemplate.

‘Are you certain that you have to go home? It seems such a pity.’ Maggie was sitting up in bed, flanked by a set of crutches, drinking tea. In the daylight her bruises looked more painful, bright navy in contrast to her pallor and so violent that Kate couldn’t look at them directly without wincing. It was around ten the next morning, not that it really mattered what time Kate left for home; the boys were staying with Chrissie, and Joe would be off schmoozing some Yank but it felt like the right time to leave.

‘I’ll try and get back next week. I need to sort my client list out and make arrangements for the kids.’

Maggie painted on what passed for a brave smile. ‘Okay, if you’re sure. Thanks for coming to the rescue, darling. It was so nice to see you. Ring me when you get back.’

Kate kissed her goodbye and then jogged down the stairs, fighting with her guilt, not protesting when Guy offered to carry her bag out to the car.

At the car, to her surprise, he gave her a hug. ‘It’s been great to meet you at last, Kate, I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s a real shame you couldn’t stay longer, but don’t worry I’ll take good care of your mum.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Safe journey home.’

Kate nodded. It was sickening, Guy was so genuinely nice and pleasant that Kate was ashamed of herself for feeling so – so what? So jealous? So put out, so aggrieved? Angry? Disgusted, excluded? What on earth was it that was churning away in the bottom of her belly? Some odd out-of-the-cradle, pseudo-sibling rivalry? Was she jealous of Maggie or jealous of Guy? It was all far too Freudian to contemplate; she would glad to be safe in the car and on her way home.

Breakfast had been almost more than Kate could bear. Guy loping round in the kitchen wrapped up in a white towelling robe, all buffed and puffed and pink from the shower, making up a tray for Maggie, with a bunch of daisies on it. He was way too gentle and funny. Tender, warm. There had to be a catch, surely to God no one could be that good? What must it be like to be loved by someone who did all that sort of thing and really meant it?

‘Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t make it next week,’ he was saying, as she buckled up her seat belt. ‘It’ll be okay, we’ll manage, don’t worry.’ He was standing alongside the car. ‘Viv next door has already said she’ll keep on eye on Maggie and help her out if I can’t reschedule the Germany trip. I should know later today –’

Kate reversed out onto the road, managing to give Guy a smile and a perfunctory wave, wondering how her conscience would feel if she decided not to come back at all, ever. Her mind shuffled and reshuffled the possible permutations. Maybe Guy would be able to reorganise the trip. Maybe if she just went back for a day or two, arrive Monday and go home Wednesday morning. Maybe by the time she got home Kate would have worked out why she felt so bloody strange about the whole setup.

The drive home wasn’t bad and as Kate turned off the main drag into Windsor Street it looked as though the houses had been waiting for her, all stretched out, basking in the summer sun, Bill’s red geraniums glowing like a beacon on his windowsill. It felt really good to be back. It was hard to believe she had only been away overnight.

Joe’s car was still parked in the road outside their house, wedged tightly between a VW and a dark purple Ka. Kate sighed; back to reality, she thought, with something less than a wry smile. Silly bugger had probably been so drunk the night before that he hadn’t dared drive in to his meeting. Interesting combination, a raging hangover and the Underground.

Kate found a space to park a little way up the road and as she walked back a peculiar thought appeared in her head. It sprang from nowhere, was totally irrational, and Kate had absolutely no idea what triggered it, but as soon it did, she tried very hard to unthink it. It was ridiculous and yet some part of her was absolutely certain that when she got in Joe and Chrissie would be together in her house.

And the even more ridiculous thing was that she was right.

Kate pushed opened the back door and there was Chrissie, as bold as brass, sitting at the kitchen table, all wrapped up in Kate’s favourite pale blue bathrobe, drinking coffee with Joe. Her best friend and her husband.

It was around about lunchtime; the boys were nowhere in sight. Joe was sitting at the other side of the table, cradling a mug. He was dressed in an old tee-shirt and boxer shorts and hadn’t shaved. Kate knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no innocent explanation for what she was looking at; Joe and Chrissie had slept together. More than that, she knew with the same degree of certainty, that they had done it before. Several times, lots and lots of times, enough times so they had stopped counting because they were in the kind of comfort zone that only comes with familiarity.

For an instant Kate felt as if she was the one on the outside, an intruder, a stranger, excluded, and felt almost guilty for barging in on the pair of them.

As fast as the thoughts bubbled up, Kate struggled to suppress them; it was crazy even though she knew she was right. In those few seconds which seemed to last forever it felt as if someone was squeezing every last breath of air out of her lungs and she was wading towards them through mud and treacle.

There had to be some other explanation, except of course that there wasn’t. Instead there was a moment when Joe and Chrissie and Kate all looked at one another and everyone knew and everyone caught some glimpse of the enormity of what was going on and what had been discovered, and just as quickly all that knowing vanished beneath the waves. Chrissie papered a very convincing smile on over a look of complete surprise and shock, and said, ‘Hi Kate, how was the drive? I’ve just made a cup of coffee, do you want one?’

Which was a preposterous thing to say but at least it was quick. Kate stared at her.

Joe peered across the table, looking for all the world as if someone had hit him over the head with a baseball bat. His mouth had dropped open, his eyes bulged wide.

‘We weren’t expecting you back today,’ he said. She could always rely on Joe to state the obvious. And then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘It isn’t what you think.’

At least Chrissie had the decency to blush.

‘And what might that be?’ Kate said, very slowly, looking first at one and then the other, while something inside her contracted so hard that Kate thought there was a good chance that she might be sick.

And then Joe laughed. It might have been embarrassment, or nerves or self-consciousness, Kate had no idea at all. But whatever it was the sound broke through into the stunned place where she was.

‘I think you’d better go home now, Chrissie,’ Kate said, mainly because she had no idea what else to say. For one awful moment Kate thought there was a chance that Chrissie might protest or say something smart, but she thought better of it, pulled Kate’s bathrobe tighter around her chest and headed off into the hall.

Kate looked around the kitchen, her home, which now seemed and felt like an alien place, feeling slightly faint and longing to sit down. Unfortunately the most obvious chair was the one Chrissie had just vacated. The others were either side of Joe and she had no desire whatsoever to sit next to him. So she stood in silence, one hand on the sink to keep her balance, and stared out into the garden while Chrissie went upstairs and got dressed. The clock ticked. The tap dripped and she could feel Joe looking at her with those big doleful eyes of his. It felt like months before Chrissie finally came tap-tap-tapping down the stairs in her supper party clothes, opened the front door and let herself out.

And then, as if the backdraft from the door closing ignited the fire that had been the smouldering inside her, Kate turned to Joe.

‘So?’ she said in voice that would have cut through sheet steel.

Part of her was tempted to let the fire inside her roar. Sweep the remains of his adulterous little brunch away with a single swipe of an angry arm, maybe throw the cups across the room, punch his stupid, stupid lights out, but Kate reined the feelings all in because even in the icy cold heart of her, Kate knew that if anyone was going to storm out indignantly it would most probably be Joe and she had no desire to be left with the chaos to clear up after the maelstrom had passed. And so she looked at him, long and hard, trying to see all those things she had missed before.

‘I’m sorry, Kate,’ he said. He spoke in a throwaway, bumped into someone on the pavement kind of voice. It was a ludicrous thing to say.

‘Sorry for screwing my best friend or sorry that you got caught? Which is it?’ she asked icily. ‘How long has this been going on, Joe?’

Along with every other thought clamouring around inside Kate’s head was this crazy fury that somehow Joe had managed to reduce their life to an excerpt from a daytime soap opera.

‘Kate, please,’ he said in a strangled tangled voice. ‘Don’t do this. I’m really sorry. Chrissie and I were just saying that we should never have let it happen.’

‘Oh well, that’s really big of you,’ Kate snapped back, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

‘We were drunk. It was an accident.’

‘An accident? What do you mean, an accident? Accidents involve cars, and crockery and wet floors, Joe. What did she do, trip up and impale herself on you?’

He didn’t say a word, but then again what was there to say?

‘How many accidents have you and Chrissie had over the years, Joe? How many?’ Inside Kate was churning. She was struggling not to lose it, not to sound too angry or hurt because she wanted to know the answers. Wanted to know before she dissolved into the raw emotions. There were just too many things going around inside her head to decide which one was driving, and so her voice came out flat and cold and cruel.

‘Kate, please don’t do this.’

‘Don’t do what? Ask for answers? Want to know how long my best friend and my husband have been getting it on behind my back. How long has it been, Joe? How long?’ Kate could hear the fury rumble, developing in her ears and in her voice like a summer storm. She couldn’t remember a time when she had felt so much, so fiercely.

‘Look, Kate, I’ve already said I’m sorry; we didn’t mean to.’

‘What the fuck do you mean you didn’t mean to? What did it do, jump up and take you both by surprise? It’s not like you’re magnetic or anything. How long, Joe?’

He looked at Kate, wide-eyed and speechless.

‘Tell me,’ Kate roared with a voice that seemed to erupt from somewhere deep beneath her feet.

‘I can’t,’ he said, ashen now.

‘A year, two years. Five, ten?’

‘It isn’t like that.’

‘What is it like then, Joe? Or would you prefer me to ring Chrissie and ask her? You’ve gone on and on for years about what a fucking little tramp she is. How she neglects her kids, always getting herself into debt, going out with all sorts of misfits and morons. Christ, there were times when I was afraid to invite her round for a coffee in case we ended up rowing about it. And all that time you were screwing her?’

He said nothing.

Kate felt so sick that she thought she might die. ‘Since she moved in?’

Nothing.

‘Since she moved in?’ Kate roared, waiting for Joe to protest, to deny it.

But he didn’t. He didn’t deny it, instead he just looked up at Kate with eyes full of tears, and then at last very slowly said, ‘No, not all the time. When Chrissie first moved in you and I were going through a bad patch. The band was falling apart, things weren’t right between us. I don’t need to tell you this stuff, Kate, you already know it. I thought I was letting you and the boys down, that you didn’t need me, that you’d be better off without me. I was up to my arse in debt, what with all the gear, and then getting the van repossessed. Chrissie thought I was special. She just needed someone to give her a hand with a few jobs, put some shelves up, she was down on her uppers too. Depressed. I don’t know, I suppose we both needed a shoulder to cry on. What I’m saying is that it just happened. I don’t know what else to say. It just happened –’

Kate felt her whole life shift a little to the left. Where had she been when all this was going on? How was it she hadn’t known? Kate stared at him, remembering how she’d gone round to introduce herself to Chrissie, remembering how that first night she’d moved in Kate had invited her round to supper because Chrissie hadn’t got any gas or maybe it was electricity.

Staring at Joe, Kate watched a quick fire slide show of memories and images rip through her mind like bullets in a machine gun belt. She would have to go back now and look again at every single frame trying to spot the things she had missed the first time round. How could she possibly have not known? Was her intuition so bad?

‘And since then? How many times since you went to fix her shelves?’

Joe squirmed in the chair, a naughty boy caught with the stolen fruit in his jacket pocket.

‘Well?’

‘Look Kate, it’s not like we’re having a full-scale affair or anything.’

‘So what is it then? A harmless meeting of minds?’

He shook his head. It wasn’t so much a denial more a gesture of dismissal, of a desire to escape. Watching him, Kate wasn’t sure which hurt the most, Chrissie’s betrayal or Joe’s, and then she realised with a gut wrenching certainty it was, without a doubt, Chrissie’s.

Joe had never been privy to her thoughts and fears and dreams and giggling drunken confessions in the same unguarded way Chrissie had. Kate might have shared her body with Joe but it had been Chrissie Kate had told about her first snog, the first time she had ever seen a man naked and what she thought and felt and dreamed about almost everything else that had happened since then. Chrissie had been into those secret sacred places where only best friends go. And apparently, now it seemed, a few more besides.

Between them, they had betrayed Kate beyond words and it hurt so hard that she couldn’t gauge just how big the pain was. It spread out all around her like a rolling fog with no edge and no relief. She was angry and then furious and then humiliated; between them they had made a total fool of her, and she felt so hurt and so raw that she wanted to hit Joe and wreak some terrible, terrible vengeance. For an instant Kate wanted the pair of them dead, worse than dead, and then with a great wave of grief thought maybe it would be better if she was dead. All this ebbed and flowed through Kate’s mind in a handful of seconds.

‘Would you like some tea?’ Joe asked, getting up.

Kate finally slid down into the chair Chrissie had so recently vacated. ‘Yes,’ she said exhausted, head in hand. It was as if all those emotions had burnt off a huge amount of energy. But she wasn’t too tired to fight. ‘How could you do this to me?’

‘Kate, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

‘You should have thought about that before you screwed Chrissie. I don’t know where this leaves us, Joe. Where do we go from here?’

She looked up at him. His expression held but she could see the panic and pain flash behind his eyes.

Kate spoke very slowly. ‘I’ve always been on your side, Joe, I thought we were a team. I know things haven’t always gone the way you wanted but I’ve never given you a hard time about it. I’ve always believed in what you do, your talent, I never ever said give up the music, get real, get a proper job,’ Kate paused. Maybe that was the problem, maybe he needed something to kick against, maybe she had killed him with kindness. ‘Are you planning to leave? Do you want to be with her? Have you just been waiting for the right time to tell me?’

He looked completely horrified. ‘God – no, of course not. I don’t want Chrissie, Kate, I never wanted Chrissie. I want you.’

‘It doesn’t look much like that from where I’m sitting, Joe. And actually don’t bother about the tea, either, it would most probably choke me.’

Feeling incredibly tired and world-weary Kate picked up her bags and headed upstairs.

Despite an odd sense of unreality, and a voice in her head that said that this couldn’t be happening, standing in the doorway to their bedroom Kate felt another great wave of nausea rising up in her stomach. There was no way she would ever be able to bring herself to wash the sheets. Ripping them off the bed Kate bundled everything, sheets, duvet cover, pillowcases into a big untidy roll and stuffed the whole lot into a black plastic rubbish bag.

When she was done, Kate pushed her hair back out of her eyes and – as she brushed her finger across her face – was amazed to find that she had been crying. While she worked Kate had no idea where Joe was or what he was doing. It was as if her consciousness edited him out. Who could she tell, who she could talk to about this, who was there who would put their arms around her and hold her tight until the tears boiled dry?

As she got clean sheets out of the airing cupboard Danny and Jake came jogging up the stairs.

‘We saw your car,’ said Danny, slumping down onto the bare mattress.

Jake grinned a hello. ‘We weren’t expecting you back until Monday.’

Kate didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘How’s Gran? Is there any chance of a lift to –’ but before Danny had chance to say anything more, the phone rang in the hall. ‘Bugger,’ he said.

It rang once, twice, ‘I’ll get it,’ Kate said and hurried downstairs to pick it up.

‘Hi,’ said Maggie. ‘I rang to see if you’d got back okay. It was lovely to see you. It was such a shame you couldn’t have stayed longer.’

If only Maggie knew how big a shame.

‘It would be great if you could come down next week, if you can spare the time obviously. You don’t have to stay all week –’

It was the first time she remembered Maggie asking her for anything. Kate paused for a moment; on the drive home she had come up with all kinds of valid excuses for not going back, although that seemed like a long time ago now. On the edge of her hearing she heard the back door close. It had to be Joe going out. Kate swallowed hard. She longed to be away from this mess more than almost anything else, and so Kate said, as brightly as she could manage, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be down first thing Monday morning if that’s okay. It’ll give me chance to sort some work out –’

‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ Maggie sounded surprised and relieved.

‘I’ve got to go now though, Mum, I’ve – I’ve –’ Kate paused again, unable to think of any plausible reason to hang up. The possibilities were too painful to contemplate. ‘I’ll ring you later.’

Kate was barely half way up the stairs before the phone rang again.

‘I’m pleased that you’ve been to see Mum,’ said Liz, before Kate could get more than a few words of greeting in.

‘Obviously she’s got my mobile number if she needs me,’ Liz continued. Her tone was emphatic, dry, businesslike and above all, defensive. ‘She’s never appreciated a lot of fuss.’ The inference was of course that haring up to Norfolk in the middle of the night most definitely constituted fuss.

‘I’ve told her that we’ll pop down next weekend. Toby and Gillian are having a barbecue this weekend. It’s a fundraiser for some orphanage in Rumania. We’d already RSVP’d and I don’t like to let people down.’

‘Obviously,’ Kate said, in a voice so heavy with sarcasm that she assumed even Liz wouldn’t be able to overlook it. ‘I’m going to stay with Mum next week,’ Kate continued, not adding that she was also running away from the discovery that the man Liz had always thought was an arrogant, smug, second-rate musician, was also a lying, adulterous bastard.

‘Oh right,’ Liz couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘Mum said that Guy will be there over the weekend, so we needn’t worry too much I suppose, although it’s not like family.’

We; we: Liz and Mr Peter Patently-Successful. Fleetingly Kate wondered if she had always been this cynical and nasty or whether she had turned that way and not noticed. Maybe that’s why Joe had gone off with Chrissie. The words stung. Had he gone off with Chrissie? Is that where he was now? She started to tremble.

Odd how it was possible to behave and talk normally while all around you Rome burns. What had they been talking about? Guy. Oh yes. ‘What do you think of Guy?’

Liz had to have an opinion on the whole Guy-mother thing. But instead of saying anything Liz made a noncommittal noise, so Kate pressed, ‘Have you met him?’

‘Well yes, very briefly, at Christmas,’ said Liz vaguely. ‘He seemed very pleasant.’

‘Pleasant?’

‘Well, you know, he’s fine as lodgers go; we didn’t have much chance to talk. He was off to see his ex-wife I think it was, or maybe it was his mother. I can’t really remember now.’

So Liz didn’t know about Guy and Maggie.

‘You sound very tense. Are you all right? How’s Joe?’ asked Liz.

‘What do you mean?’ Kate snapped, aware of an excess of emotion in her voice.

‘Nothing. I just wondered how things were. Not that I’m prying or anything but it must be a strain being freelance, never knowing how much you’re going to earn each month or whether you’ll have any work at all.’ She made a noise that under other circumstances might have passed for a laugh. ‘I’ve always said to Peter that you’re both very brave, I don’t know how you manage.’

For brave substitute stupid, thought Kate. This conversation was never far from Liz’s lips as if Joe’s and Kate’s continued survival was an affront to Liz’s neatly structured life. Sometimes she could head Liz off before it was too late but today she hadn’t the energy or the inclination.

‘We do worry about you, and I know Mum does too, you looked so tired last time we came up to see you, and Peter thought Joe was very off with everybody.’

Kate kept schtum, not wanting to point out that Liz and Peter’s visit was the reason for everyone being so tense and grumpy. There was a silence as deep as the ocean.

Kate knew that anything she said would be taken down and used in evidence against her later. A previous conversation about Kate’s marriage had hinged on the premise that most of the family thought Joe was an arrogant, overbearing waster who should grow up and get a proper job; although when pressed, Liz had been reluctant to name names.

‘There’s no need to get upset,’ said Liz.

‘Upset, what do you mean, upset? I’m not at all upset,’ Kate growled. Damn, damn, damn, now Liz would think she really was upset.

‘You know, if there’s any way that Peter and I can ever help,’ she said, in a viperous undertone, ‘you know you only have to ask.’

Kate took a deep breath to let Liz have a piece of her mind, although which piece she wasn’t altogether certain.

‘Mum, can I have a fiver?’

That wasn’t what Kate planned to say at all, with a mouth full of unspoken words as sharp as broken glass, she swung round. Danny was standing on the bottom of the stairs, grinning. By some terrible trick of genetics, time and protein, he stood more than head and shoulders above her and looked just like a younger version of Joe.

He shifted from foot to foot, moving in a way that implied he was extremely busy, and had very little time to wait for Kate to give him the money. Good God, he’d got all kinds of things to do. Important things. He was nearly fifteen, didn’t she realise? Over the last few months it increasingly seemed as if Danny only spoke to Kate when she was on the phone or quite obviously busy doing something else. It was a tactic. He was hoping Kate would be so absorbed in whatever she was doing that she won’t notice what he was asking for.

‘No chance,’ she snapped in a tone that let Danny know that the situation was not up for discussion. Unfortunately, she didn’t cover the receiver.

‘Well pardon me for asking,’ said Liz, slightly cowed. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘I’m not talking to you,’ Kate replied almost as sharply. Which didn’t help at all.

‘Why?’ Now Liz sounded upset. ‘What on earth have I done?’

Kate slumped forward against the hallstand. ‘Nothing, nothing at all, Liz. I was talking to Danny. He was asking me for money.’ Which didn’t sound good either.

Jake, who was almost eleven, squeezed past Kate on his way to the kitchen. He’d left his bedroom door open so the hall filled up with the sounds of laser blasts and engine roar from his TV.

‘I’m really worried about you, Kate,’ Liz said, and then as if sensing that it was perhaps not a good place to go, said, ‘Why did you want to know about Guy?’

‘Curiosity,’ Kate growled.

‘He’s been giving Mum a hand with the garden at weekends apparently. Which is nice –’

That isn’t the only thing he’s been giving her a hand with, Kate thought.

‘And he’s given the conservatory a lick of paint,’ Liz continued oblivious. While Kate’s little sister might be as devious as bucket of adders she had never been very quick on the uptake.

‘And what else do you know about Guy?’

Liz was away now. ‘He’s in computers, divorced, staying with Mum until he gets himself on his feet. I’d imagine it’s quite nice for them both. Why?’ There was a pause and then Liz laughed. ‘Oh my God, you’re not interested in Guy, are you? Things with Joe can’t be that bad, surely?’ She was laughing. ‘Peter reckons Guy’s used to having someone to wait on him and you know what Mum’s like, she’s always loved to have someone to cook for and make a fuss of.’

Kate wondered who on earth it was Liz saw when she looked at Maggie. She was just toying with the idea of explaining to Liz that their mum wasn’t just making the boy cocoa, when Liz said, ‘Oh and how’s Chrissie? I keep meaning to ring her. Last time we met at yours she was telling me she’d found this gorgeous new man, he was married, I think, which made it all a bit messy –’ and then Liz said, ‘Mind you, I don’t suppose it can be easy starting again at her age. She is quite nice-looking though, isn’t she? In a common sort of way. I suppose there’s a lot of men who find that sort of thing attractive.’

And at that moment Kate decided not to tell Liz anything at all. Ever again. It would be infinitely more satisfying when Liz found out about Guy for herself.

When she finally hung up Kate went into the kitchen made a mug of tea and dumped the bed linen alongside the swing bin. From the window she could see Joe in the garden, sitting on the wall. She watched him for a few minutes and then went outside.

‘Joe?’ She noticed that he flinched at the sound of her voice. Kate felt tears welling up inside, her anger momentarily displaced by a great wave of grief and sharp, pointed loss. Maybe it would be easier never to speak to Joe again, except of course that there were all those things she wanted to say, all those things that she needed to know, and things that had to be said if they stood any chance at all of putting things right.

Kate swallowed hard; did she really want to put it right? Wasn’t this the chance she’d been waiting for for years, a get out of jail free card with all the fine views that came from having the moral high ground? She had as much leverage and power now as she could ever want. The idea made her shiver; surely she was more honourable than this?

Joe turned and looked up at her.

On Thursday, the night before the supper party, when Kate had gone to bed a couple of hours after Joe? When she crept in beside him, that moment when he had turned towards her half-awake and half-asleep? When he had snuggled up against her, encircling her body with his to share his warmth, who had he been thinking of then?

Kate had been so pleased, so bloody grateful that whatever had been firing his discontent had gone – even if only temporarily. Joe had held her in his arms and slowly, oh-so-slowly, begun nuzzling into her neck with a flurry of soft kisses, rekindling the fire, that long slow familiar dance that they had shared so many times. As it was, Joe had been deeper asleep than Kate had first thought and after a few moments he had slowed and stopped and slipped back to unconsciousness but now that image, that seduction, was frozen on an inner canvas.

Did Joe do the same dance with Chrissie, go through those same compelling steps? Join the same dots? Did he make those soft puppy noises of pleasure; did those little high spots of colour appear on his cheeks when he came? Did he nuzzle her neck, cup her breasts, purr into her hair in just the same way as he did with Kate? The thoughts piled in one on top of the other. Kate blinked hard, her whole body rigid. It was agony to swallow down the tears, each one as hot as molten lava.

‘Hi,’ Joe said.

He looked as if he’d been crying. He looked very pale. She knew that men, or at least Joe, didn’t go hunting for the truth in the same way that women do. Men don’t want to know, women do, and once they do know the truth they torture themselves with the things they find out.

But that wasn’t what Kate said aloud, instead she said, ‘Mum rang me. I’ve told her I’ll go up and give her a hand next week.’

‘So what’s changed?’ Joe said. Kate was certain that couldn’t be what he had meant to say. She looked at him. What little colour Joe had left suddenly drained away and as if the words hadn’t been spoken, he continued hastily, ‘What – all week?’

‘Probably.’ Kate paused, wondering how best to describe Guy and then decided not to bother, she didn’t want to share her thoughts or her secrets with Joe any more. ‘There’s no way Mum can manage on her own.’

‘What, so you want me to have the boys all next week?’

Was it that hard to understand, or was it that he was protesting?

‘Yes.’

Joe sucked his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘I’m really busy at the moment, Kate.’

He paused and looked up at her; Kate knew that the disappointment and pain had already registered on her face, and it struck her as typical that even now, when she needed him most, Joe couldn’t help her. Even now when, if not logic then most certainly guilt, should have him making all kind of rash promises, he just couldn’t do it.

‘I’ll try and reschedule some of the stuff but it’s not going to be easy. I’ve got things booked. Rehearsals, studio time for the radio jingle –’ He didn’t add that he had already missed this morning’s meeting, even Joe wouldn’t sink that low. ‘I’m pretty booked up one way and another.’

‘I’m not a client, Joe. This is my mum and our kids I’m talking about; besides they’re at school all day –’

‘I know, I know – I’m just saying.’ For an instant Joe sounded almost triumphant. He might be in the wrong, but at the moment Kate needed him to do what Joe – at some level – perceived as a favour and somehow that helped to redress the balance of power. And then, all of sudden, Joe leaned forward and smiled. A great big genuine smile. Kate could hardly believe it.

‘Don’t worry, we can sort this out, Kate,’ he said, as if he was talking about the cupboard under the stairs, and then he held out his arm. ‘Come on, it’ll be okay. I’m really sorry, babe. Believe me this whole Chrissie thing was nothing. Just a storm in a teacup. Honest.’

He stood up, nodding his head and stepping closer as if to cuddle her.

Kate felt the hackles on the back of her neck rise. ‘It’s that simple is it, Joe? A few cliches and a promise to look into childcare arrangements and that’s it, is it. Job done? Game over?’

He looked bemused. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, Kate.’

Had the man got no shame? She backed away, not quite able to believe it.

‘What? What is the matter with you?’ he said, looking genuinely surprised, shocked even, as she took another step away from him. ‘I’ve said I’ll try and sort work and the kids out next week for you. Come on,’ he waved her closer. ‘We’re bigger than this, Kate.’

‘Bigger than this? Bigger than what? Infidelity, lying, cheating?’ For an instant Kate saw Joe in a completely different light. How was it that they had ever stayed together for so long? Were all those years and the man she thought she was married to some clever trick of the light? ‘You’re always telling people you’ll do anything, absolutely anything, for me and the kids. Anything at all as long as it didn’t upset your plans, obviously.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, be reasonable.’

‘Reasonable? Reasonable – how dare you?’ Kate took a deep breath, struggling not to choke as a great roaring gust of betrayal blew like a hurricane wind through her memory. She stared at him, trying to fathom out which things between them were still true, which were false, which words of love, which promises, were real now?

‘I’ve already said we can sort this out.’

‘I don’t know if there is anything left for us to sort out, Joe.’

He pulled a puzzled face as if she’d sprung some huge surprise on him.

‘I need to get away from here – from you, I need time to think –’

‘Think?’ he repeated, and then laughed nervously ‘What about?’

‘What do you mean, what about? What do you think?’ she said incredulously. He was about to say something, God alone knows what, when Danny appeared in the kitchen door looking seriously miffed, clutching a family-sized bag of blue Doritos in one paw and a jar of salsa dip in the other. He grinned at Kate. He’d obviously been on a search and destroy mission through the fridge, had a rather fetching milk moustache and was still, it seemed, waiting for the reply and the fiver he wanted.

He looked from face to face; like the dinosaur, the adolescent brain is situated a long way from the site of any meaningful activity, so it took Danny about a minute of glacier-grinding silence to work out that things weren’t exactly going well in the back yard and to make a tactical withdrawal. As he did, Kate got up and followed him inside, her whole body trembling with a volatile cocktail of intense unnameable emotions.