A Friend of the Family

by Marcia Willett

  Felicity shook her head and got up to prepare her lunch. Even as she mentally worked out the amount of calories in her cream cheese, adjusting the size to counteract the gin and tonic, she was deciding how she could discover what George was up to and catch him out at it. She was already suspecting that it might be another woman although she would have thought he had already learned his lesson on that score. Felicity chopped chives with a vicious hand that boded ill for George and mentally reviewed her possible sources of information. No stone would be left unturned, no avenue left unexplored. She ate her lunch without tasting a single bite and rose girded for battle. Some infallible instinct told her that George had either cheated—or was about to cheat—on her and the scent of blood was in her narrow, haughty nostrils.

  Three

  CASSANDRA WIVENHOE BACKED HER car out of the open-fronted barn that served as a garage and set off down the drive past the Georgian rectory that she and her husband Tom had bought eleven years before. She turned left into the lane and headed towards Plymouth. She quite enjoyed these drives to the station on Friday evenings to collect Tom from the London train although she knew it would not be so pleasant when the winter arrived and she would have to cross the moor in the dark, accompanied by driving rain or perhaps in a thick fog, not to mention the occasional blizzard.

  She drove slowly, enjoying the new growth and unfurling of tender green leaves. Although the high moors were still gripped in the iron hand of winter, here in the deep sheltered lanes the banks were studded with primroses and violets, the hedges above them white with hawthorn blossom, and, now that the cold winds of April had backed to the warmer southwesterlies of early May, it seemed that summer might be on its way at last.

  It was more than three years since their eldest daughter Charlotte had died in a riding accident. Accident? Or had it been suicide? Cass would never know. For months afterwards she had thought of her daughter, not quite sixteen, taking her pony out and riding off in the wild storm of that dreadful dav, up to the quarry which she knew to be a dangerous area even in good conditions. Was she running away from the terrible car smash, that she, in her innocence, had caused? Or was that simply the last straw in a series of emotional upsets? The problem with the highly strung and sensitive Charlotte was that it was impossible to judge her actions.

  Cass drove through Clearbrook and on to the open moor. Slowly, very slowly, she had come to terms with it. She had always lived on the principle of ‘live now, pay later,’ enjoying lighthearted flirtations and affairs while Tom was at sea, suspecting that he was also taking his pleasure where he found it. She had taken risks and chances which had added spice to life, and then payday had arrived. Her lifelong friend Kate Webster, another naval wife whose marriage had finally ended in divorce, had always warned her that it would. It was Cass who had first dubbed it ‘playing Russian roulette’ and Kate who had told her that one day she would get the bullet. But it was Charlotte who had got the bullet: serious, quiet little Charlotte who had adored her father and loved her smaller brothers and sister and who had been terrified that Cass’s infidelities might lead to trouble and break up the family. She had got the bullet meant for Cass.

  For both Cass and Tom it was not just the death of their daughter that they had to come to terms with but their own guilt. During the appalling days and weeks after the funeral they had attempted to comfort each other whilst remorse and shame hammered away at the back of their minds. If Tom hadn’t been with Harriet, if Cass hadn’t been with Nick, would things have been different?

  For Tom, the Falklands War had come at exactly the right moment and he had become deeply involved in strategic planning, relieved to have something else to distract his mind. Cass was thankful, too. Occasionally, overwhelmed by guilt and misery, Tom had tried to push the weight of it on to her. Cass held her own but, understanding his pain and what drove him to try to blame her, she also held her peace and did not question him in turn. She knew very well that he had been with Harriet but could see no future in their tearing each other to shreds. And, after all, it was she who had pushed him into Harriet’s ready arms, hoping to hide her own affair with Nick. The blame was hers and she took it to herself and attempted to deal with it. She spent as much time as she could with her other three children and, by the end of the war, time had played its part in healing all of them to the extent that they could start again.

  There were still anguished moments, agonised feelings of loss, but at least now, more than three years on, they were able to cope with that loss and with each other and they had once again picked up the threads of their lives together. Life went on.

  Cass drove into the station and looked for Tom. He was waiting outside the plate-glass doors and he raised his hand as he saw her approach. Cass pulled in and watched him hurry across the road to her. It was still a little odd to see him in his London suit instead of naval uniform. The last few years had added lines to his face and grey to his brown hair, which was as thick as ever, but today there was something different about his demeanour, the way he walked and the expression on his face, and Cass looked at him expectantly as he got into the passenger’s seat. He leaned across to give her the customary peck on the cheek and they exchanged the usual greetings.

  ‘Good week?’

  ‘Not too bad. You?’

  ‘Fine. Train’s on time for a change.’

  Cass headed for Tavistock and waited.

  ‘I’ve got some amazing news. You’ll never guess what it is.’

  ‘What?’ Cass negotiated the lights and crossings of Mutley Plain with care.

  Tom waited until she was through the worst before he spoke.

  ‘George is getting married.’

  ‘Good God! So she’s got him at last. Well, it’s not all that amazing, darling. It was only a question of time once Mark died. I’m only surprised that they waited this long.’

  ‘Aha! But that’s the whole point. He’s not marrying Felicity.’ ‘What?’

  ‘Careful! You nearly had that cyclist. You’ll never believe it. It seems that he went on leave to see his old mum and met this girl at some friend’s house. He’s fallen for her, hook, line and sinker.’

  Cass drove for some moments, grappling with this information while Tom observed the effect of his news with immense satisfaction.

  ‘Incredible, isn’t it?’

  Cass shook her head. ‘Felicity will never let him,’ she said at last. ‘She’ll kill him first. Don’t tell me she knows about it?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. And poor old George is like a cat on a hot tin roof.’ Tom chuckled. ‘Poor old boy. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He’s absolutely shit-scared that she’s going to find out. He’s sworn me to secrecy.’

  ‘How stupid. Of course she’ll find out. What an idiot he is. Why did he tell you if he’s so scared?’

  ‘He wants me to be best man,’ explained Tom. ‘So I had to know. Which means you have to know. But he trusts us both not to breathe a word to another soul. He’s asking one or two others to the wedding and swearing them to secrecy, too.’

  Cass burst out laughing. ‘Oh, honestly, Tom. What a farce! Only George could imagine that he’ll get away with it. What’s he going to do? Carry on with Felicity as if nothing’s happened until the eve of the wedding and then send her a little note thanking her for her kind hospitality which will no longer be required?’

  ‘He’s not seeing her at all. He’s told her that he’s been sent away on some top-secret stuff and hopes to keep a low profile until the wedding’s over. He thinks that it will be too late then for her to put a spoke in the wheel.’

  Cass laughed then in earnest. She laughed so much that Tom found himself laughing with her between his admonishments to watch her driving.

  ‘Top secret!’ she said, when finally she could speak and they were driving through Roborough. ‘I’ve heard it all now. If he thinks that Felicity will believe that then he’s even more of a twit than I realised. She’ll hunt him down in no time. And the girl. W
ho is she? Do we know her?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘She’s not local. Her name’s Thea and she’s only twenty-three, apparently. Old George is like a dog with two tails.’

  ‘Dear God! If Felicity finds her she’ll eat her alive. It’s too bad of George. God knows, I can’t stand Felicity, but I think he should have told her the truth. I think she deserves that after twenty-odd years.’

  Tom looked uncomfortable. Manlike, he felt that if Felicity had been prepared to deceive her husband all those years, she deserved what was coming to her at the end of it. He felt that George had a perfect right to marry whom he wished and if a charming and attractive girl twenty years his junior was prepared to take him on then good luck to him. He had sympathised openly with George and encouraged him. He shifted a little in his seat and Cass glanced at him.

  ‘I suppose you urged him on,’ she said, accurately assessing his discomfort. ‘Well, I can’t really say that I blame you. I simply think that it will be worse for George when Felicity finds out he’s lying and deceiving her than if he’d told her the truth. But either way he hasn’t got a hope. Poor George. And poor Thea. Oh well, can’t be helped. So come on. Spit it all out. You haven’t told me half of it yet.’

  KATE WEBSTER WAS RATHER surprised when Cass telephoned her on Monday morning as soon as she had dropped Tom at the station and got back home. Her news was too riveting to wait, she said, and no, it couldn’t be told over the telephone.

  ‘I want to see your face when I tell you,’ said Cass.

  ‘Honestly, Cass . . . ’

  ‘No, I won’t hear any excuses. I don’t care about your old dogs and anyway I haven’t seen you for ages. Shall I come to you or will you come here?’

  ‘Well, I was just dashing into Tavistock to do some shopping . . . ’

  ‘Even better. I’ll meet you in the Bedford for coffee. Half an hour?’ And without waiting for a reply she’d hung up.

  Now, sitting in a corner of the hotel lounge, Kate smiled to herself. No one can be the same after the death of a beloved child but even with the traumas of the past years Cass hadn’t really changed. She’d kept her strikingly beautiful blonde beauty and underneath she was still the same lighthearted, fun-loving girl that Kate had met at boarding school twenty-eight years before.

  It was to Kate that Cass had poured out her innermost feelings. They had, by then, been through so much together, marrying so young and having to deal with naval life. Cass had supported Kate through the unhappy years of her marriage with Mark Webster and Kate had watched anxiously as Cass juggled with her lovers and with Tom. They had brought up their families, moving them from one base to another, with their husbands away at sea, and had comforted each other when first Kate’s mother died and then Cass’s father, the General, who had been such a tower of strength to them both. Cass had been on hand when Kate’s affair with Alex Gillespie had foundered on the rock of her twin boys’ antipathy and Kate had been there when Cass had fallen in love with Nick Farley and everything had crashed round her ears when he had rejected her only days before Charlotte died. The tragedy had the effect of making Cass and Tom turn back to each other, to see the foolishness—and danger—of their playing around and to resume the close, loving relationship that had always been there underneath. They had learned their lesson the hard way and they were taking no more risks.

  Kate poured herself some coffee. She looked all of her forty years. She had pulled a hasty comb through the rough short curls that were well dusted with grey but had made no effort to change out of her old navy-blue cords or the rugby shirt which had once been Guy’s—or was it Giles’s?—and was in their old school colours of black and red. Both Cass’s sons were now at Blundell’s, the twins’ old school: Oliver was working for his A levels and Saul was in his second year. The twins were away at university and Kate, who was always short of cash, was working her way slowly through their cast-off school clothes.

  She glanced up as someone came in and saw not Cass but Felicity. Although all their three husbands had been good friends these three women had never hit it off and Kate was surprised when Felicity came over to her table rather than giving her the usual frosty nod.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ she said in her rather abrupt way. ‘Waiting for someone?’ Her eyes ranged over Kate’s somewhat unkempt appearance and Kate smiled a little.

  ‘For Cass, actually,’ she replied. She was sure that this would frighten Felicity away quicker than anything else and was very surprised, therefore, when she sat down in one of the other chairs at the table.

  ‘That’s rather lucky,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind if I sit for a moment? I’d like a word with Cass.’

  Knowing that it was probably three years since Cass and Felicity had exchanged speech, Kate could only nod and was even more taken aback when Cass, arriving moments later and seeing Felicity, assumed an expression of undisguised horror far greater than the situation warranted. Almost instantly she controlled herself and by the time she arrived at the table Kate was aware that she was suppressing some overwhelming emotion.

  ‘Well, well, Felicity,’ she said, looking down at her. ‘It’s ages since I saw you. How are you?’

  ‘I’m well, thanks. And you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Cass embraced Kate. Oh, good. You’ve ordered the coffee. Oh, dear, only two cups.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Felicity. ‘I’m meeting a friend. I just thought that I’d say hello.’

  She hesitated and Cass raised her eyebrows. ‘Very civil of you,’ she said. She sat down in the remaining chair and leaned forward to pour herself some coffee. She sent Kate a tiny wink and settled back in her chair. ‘So how are things with you? I was sorry to hear about Mark.’

  ‘Not too bad,’ said Felicity. ‘Life goes on, as we both know. How’s Tom?’

  ‘Fine.’ Cass sipped her coffee and Kate felt more than ever that something was going on that she didn’t understand.

  ‘He’s at the MOD now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mmm. That’s right. Weekending. He’s sharing a flat with Tony Whelan.’ Cass chuckled a little and Kate smiled, too. Tony was one of Cass’s ex-lovers.

  ‘I expect there’s quite a few of the old gang there at the moment.’ Felicity was watching Cass closely. ‘It’s the age for it, isn’t it?’ She named one or two of their mutual submariner friends. ‘And George, of course.’

  ‘George?’ Cass looked surprised. ‘Is George at the MOD? I must get Tom to look out for him. He always enjoys a session with old George.’ She made a naughty face. ‘So do I!’

  Kate looked at Felicity, waiting for the usual expression of outrage that she could never control when Cass alluded to the fact that George had always had a soft spot for her. Today it was missing. Felicity was still watching Cass, her black eyes narrowed, as if she were waiting for something.

  ‘Tom hasn’t seen him then?’

  ‘Who? George?’ Cass shook her head. ‘I would have known if he had. George always sends his love to me. Anyway, he said he was going to share with Tom and Tony if he got sent to London. They’ve got a spare bedroom and they need the extra money. The rent is positively terrifying. Has the rotten devil got his own place after all?’

  Felicity looked discomfited. ‘Oh,’ she began and then got up quickly. ‘Here’s Pat,’ she said. ‘Must go. See you around.’

  They watched her trim figure, clad in tight black trousers and a cerise pink jacket, thread its way over to the far corner where another woman was putting down her belongings. Kate turned to Cass.

  ‘So what’s all that about?’

  Cass blew out her lips in an expression of relief and then began to chuckle. ‘Talk about coincidence,’ she said. ‘You’ll never guess. Not in a million years. Pour me some more coffee, there’s a duck, and then I’ll tell you all.’

  Four

  FOR GEORGE THE SUMMER seemed endless. He refused Tom and Tony’s offer to share their flat on the grounds that he and Thea would prefer to be on their own when she stayed wit
h him in London and, having taken up his post at the MOD and found a little place to rent, he spent every weekend with Thea in Shropshire. He refused to look further than the wedding ceremony. Because it was what he wished to believe, he deluded himself that once he and Thea were firmly married Felicity’s teeth would be drawn and he would be out of danger. At some point he would make a clean breast of it all to Thea and she would understand and forgive and he could be happy. He was managing to hold at bay all feelings of guilt regarding his relationship with Felicity. He mainly achieved this by concentrating determinedly on Thea: her youth and simplicity, her happy disposition that looked at life without cynicism or gloom yet had its roots in a balanced acceptance of good and evil. For Thea the words ‘it isn’t fair’ would never have any point. Life wasn’t fair, had never said that it was going to be fair, promised nothing. Accepting this, she would be looking for the good, the happy, the positive; George instinctively recognised this and wanted it for his own. He wanted to hitch his rattly old wagon to this bright particular star and nothing and no one was going to prevent him.