by Sue Welfare
Kate barely had chance to get a word in.
And when Liz was done, the phone rang again; this time it was Guy calling to speak to Maggie.
Kate struggled to read through her to-do list for work, while waiting for Guy to hang up and wasn’t altogether surprised when her mobile rang – although this time she checked who was calling before answering.
‘Hi Kate, this is Bill.’
‘Hello, I was planning to phone you,’ Kate began, trying to think up a reasonable excuse why she hadn’t.
‘There’s no need to apologise.’ He paused as if composing himself, and then said quickly, ‘I’ve got the boys here with me.’
‘What? What do you mean you’ve got them there? I don’t understand; they’re supposed to be with Joe’s mum tonight.’ Kate tried to keep the indignation out of her voice.
‘They were and then Jake realised he’d left stuff at home that he needed for school tomorrow.’
‘So what happened? They came back? Isn’t Joe home yet? He left here around three –’
A ripple of panic shimmied through her. What if Joe had had an accident on the way home? Would she have to nurse him? What if he was crippled? What hideous twist of fate would do that to her? Kate struggled to keep her mind from backflipping away and listening to Bill instead; it was an uphill struggle.
‘He was at home.’ Kate could hear the internal voice in her head sigh with relief as the horribly maimed, having-to-nurse-Joe-for-the-rest-of-her-life scenario slipped through her fingers and melted without a trace.
‘I don’t understand, Bill. In that case why didn’t –’ Her brain was back, busy offering all manner of macabre solutions. ‘Oh my God, he wasn’t blind drunk, was he? Or stoned?’
‘Whoa, just slow down a minute, Kate, and listen. Joe wasn’t on his own when the boys got there.’
In the background Kate could hear Danny’s muffled voice and then more clearly. ‘Can I speak to her? Mum, Mum, is that you?’
‘Hi Dan –’ She barely had chance to ask if he was all right or really take in the implications of what Bill had said.
‘Did you know about Dad and Chrissie?’ he snapped.
Kate felt something tightening in her belly as comprehension dawned. ‘Oh my God,’ she said in an undertone.
‘So you did know?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Christ – yes, but nothing, Mum! How come nobody said anything to us? How could you?’
‘Danny, wait, please,’ Kate jumped in, desperate that he shouldn’t be angry with her, it would be more than she could bear. ‘I’ve only just found out myself. Last weekend, when I came back from Gran’s –’
‘Oh, so that that makes it all right does it?’ He was outraged and then said more softly, ‘Jake is totally gutted. He thought it was you up there.’
Kate felt icy fingers track down her spine. ‘Up where?’
‘They were in bed together when we got back here. Dad and Chrissie. Jake is beside himself.’
The room spun and Kate, impotent with a cocktail of emotions, didn’t know whether to scream or swear and cry.
‘Kate?’ Bill came back on the line. ‘Look, don’t panic.’
‘What do you mean, don’t panic? What the hell am I supposed to do?’
‘The boys are going to stay here for the night. I’ll get them to school tomorrow morning. They didn’t want to stay at your place with Joe.’
‘Where is Joe? What did Joe do? What did he say?’ Kate said, glancing up at the clock. If the traffic wasn’t too bad she could be back in town before midnight, not that she wanted to run into either Joe or Chrissie but the boys needed her. Her mind raced. Maybe she could stay at Bill’s too. It took an instant longer for her to remember that her car was still parked down at the Boatman’s Arms.
‘Damn, I haven’t got my car here. I can’t get back tonight,’ she said quickly.
‘Look, take a deep breath. There is nothing you can do here tonight even if you could get home. And how’s your mum going to manage without you? If you like I can bring the boys up to Denham tomorrow.’
As he spoke, Kate felt the first wave of tears catch in the back of her throat, threatening to knock her over and drag her down. She wrapped a hand over her mouth to hold the noise in. After a few seconds Kate said in a strangled tone, ‘I’ll ring you first thing. I’ll be home tomorrow. Can I speak to the boys now?’
‘Sure, and Kate? Try and keep a handle on this. I know you don’t believe it but it’s going to be all right. The boys will be fine here until you can sort things out.’
Of course they wouldn’t, Kate thought angrily, but how grateful did that sound under the circumstances?
‘I can’t believe Dad,’ Danny began. ‘How could he, with Chrissie of all people? He’s always going on about what a cow she is. How could he? I don’t understand it.’
The pain in Danny’s voice ripped and roared through her as anger and outrage and plain blind fury; how come no one thought to tell him what was going on?
Kate listened on and on and said nothing until his fury was finally exhausted.
‘What did Dad say?’
‘What the hell could he say?’ growled Danny.
She couldn’t have put it better herself.
‘I told him I was going to go round Bill’s and taking Jake with me and then he said I was running away, just like you always did.’
Kate winced and then said, ‘Okay, don’t worry. I want you to keep an eye on Jake, and I’ll be home as soon as I can.’
And then she spoke to Jake.
‘Mum?’ He sounded so uncertain, so blitzed, that as he spoke she started to tremble, feeling her eyes refill – this time with tears of compassion. Poor little sod.
‘Bill said he could drive us up to Grandma’s if you want. Because she’s broken her leg and that.’
She let him talk. He talked about everything and nothing, while all Kate wanted to do was to take him in her arms and cuddle him. Finally the monologue ground to a halt and Kate launched into the yawning silence. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened with Dad?’
She heard a long low whine of pain from the far end of the line. ‘It was disgusting,’ Jake yelped. ‘You two are married, aren’t you? It’s totally gross. I don’t even want to think about it. He isn’t supposed to do that stuff with other people.’
‘No, love, he isn’t,’ said Kate, wishing she had the benefit of the uncompromising black and white vision of youth, rather than the one that came with the critical soundtrack making it her fault. ‘Can you get Bill for me?’
In the other room she could hear Maggie wishing Guy sweet dreams. It was too cruel.
Kate sat in the darkness and stared unseeing at the computer screen, listening to her brain replay Danny’s and then Jake’s anguish. As soon as Maggie hung up on the house phone, Kate’s modem on the laptop kicked in and sought out a connection to the internet. It seemed that she had a night time caller too.
Chapter 14
‘Are you asleep? Chrissie? Chrissie, wake up. I know you’re in there. Let me in. Come on, Chrissie. Get up.’ A peculiar brittle, cracking, rattling sound followed the words.
Chrissie yawned and rolled over onto her back, eyes snapping open as she was dragged out of a dream. She was being shot by a firing squad, Bob Sleight was in charge of the riflemen although she was quite certain that Joe was tucked away there somewhere in the crowd, egging them on.
Bemused and confused, it took Chrissie a few seconds to get her bearings. She looked round. She was in her own bedroom, all alone – so where the hell was the voice coming from?
‘Chrisssssssie!!’
The voice was louder now and much more insistent. It was Joe. Her name was followed by the same odd, cracking, splattering sound. Oh, God, not again. This was getting beyond a joke. What was it they said? Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Hadn’t Joe Harvey once upon a time been top of her wish list? Chrissie groaned. It had been a long time ago, presumably fate had a
waiting list and she had only just floated to the top of the heap.
‘Chrisssieeeeeeee.’
She rolled over, burying her head in the pillow. And then it occurred to her that Joe was in the front garden outside the bedroom window and what had woken her was the sound of gravel hitting the glass.
She scuttled across the bed and, wrapping a sheet around herself, wrestled to lift the sash.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at? What do you want?’ It’s, it’s …’ she glanced back at the clock, ‘Jesus, Joe, it’s half past three. Go home. Go back to bed. I’ve got to go to work in the morning. This morning. I’m sick of this.’
‘I can’t sleep.’ The words came out as a loud whine. He was standing in the flower bed peering up, moonfaced and wan.
Chrissie sighed. This had been the first night since Saturday that, against all the odds, totally exhausted, she had dropped off to sleep almost as soon as her head had hit the pillow.
‘Bugger off,’ she snapped.
‘No, you have to let me in,’ he wailed. Now that he knew she was listening the volume rose by a decibel or two. Loud enough for lights to go on across the street.
‘No, I don’t, Joe,’ she hissed. ‘Go away before someone calls the police.’
‘You have to let me in,’ he said, louder still.
‘No, I don’t, now piss off before you wake the whole bloody street up.’
Not that it was likely, but it was her only weapon.
‘I love you,’ he bawled at the top of his voice. ‘You must know that. I want to talk to you. LET ME IN!’ In the arms race he won hands down.
Chrissie looked heavenwards and headed downstairs.
When she opened the door Joe was pressed up against it so hard that he practically fell in.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped.
‘You.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you look when you’re angry?’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Joe, at least try and come up with something original. You can have a cup of coffee and then go home. Do you understand?’ She was so angry the words zipped out like bullets.
‘Did anyone ever tell you how sexy you look in a sheet?’
Chrissie swung round and glared at him. ‘That’s enough, Joe. Haven’t we already done enough damage tonight between us? You go and put the kettle on while I go and get a dressing gown.’
‘No need to bother on my account.’ He moved closer, arms extended, eyes glazed over with a combination of booze, tiredness and lust. ‘I’m cold and lonely.’
Chrissie pulled away. ‘Jesus, have you got no shame at all? Stop it.’
But he didn’t, which made her even angrier.
‘No, I’m serious, Joe,’ she said, pushing him away. ‘I thought we’d agreed after tonight’s fiasco that this is not on. It’s over. We can’t do it – it is a recipe for total and utter disaster. We’ll just end up hurting everybody. No more, the end, finito.’ Chrissie paused to make sure that Joe had kept up; he looked as pale as she felt and much in need of a good night’s sleep.
‘But I’m all alone in that great big bed,’ he said in a little boy lost voice.
‘And whose fault is that?’ she growled. ‘I don’t want you here and I don’t want to be there, Joe. Go home,’ she indicated the door.
‘You don’t really mean that,’ he said.
Chrissie sighed. ‘I do Joe. I really truly do.’
‘But I love you.’
The universal panacea. Chrissie groaned, manoeuvring him into the kitchen while she pulled a robe off the back of the downstairs loo door. The tiles on the kitchen floor were cold and slightly sticky under her bare feet. She had always meant to put carpet down and now would never have the chance. The thought made her shiver more than the cold.
‘Did you go round and see the boys?’ she asked, plugging in the kettle and fishing two mugs out of the sink. The water in the bowl was grey and greasy; Chrissie couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed up. There was a smell around the sink, a smell of stale water and neglect.
Joe pulled a face, the kind of face that children pull when they are made to go and tidy their rooms. ‘No, but I rang them.’
‘You rang them?’ Chrissie said incredulously. ‘What the hell do you mean, you rang them?’ There wasn’t any milk.
She had heard the noise when they were upstairs in Kate’s bed and wondered what it was, heard it again, turned to look over her shoulder and seen Jake standing at the end of the bed with his mouth open. There had been a moment of total stillness and then he and she had gasped in unison as comprehension dawned. The expression on Jake’s face would stay with her for a very long time.
And then, a moment later Danny had been behind him in the doorway, ignoring Chrissie completely, saying, ‘How could you? You bastard – how could you?’
Joe hadn’t moved as Danny swung round to leave. It had been Chrissie who had called him back, Chrissie who had scuttled across the bed dragging on a bathrobe to try and stop him from running away, attempting to find some words to excuse and soften the inexcusable.
‘Danny,’ she had called after him as he gathered Jake up like a lost sheep. ‘Danny,’ she had repeated as he had glared back at her with total loathing.
Looking up at her from the bottom of the stairs, pointing a finger, he had said, ‘I’m going over to Bill’s house and when I get back I want you out of here, do you understand?’ There was such disdain and disgust in Danny’s voice that Chrissie had flinched.
Across her kitchen now, palms up in defence of himself, Joe was still talking. ‘I thought it would be better to ring first and see how things were. Check the lie of the land.’
‘And how were they? How did the land lie?’ He didn’t pick up on the bitterness or sarcasm in her voice.
‘Danny didn’t really want to talk to me, you know what kids are like, but he said that Kate would sort it out when she came home.’
‘And you said?’
‘Okay. I mean what else was there to say? What could I say? I’m sorry you caught me in bed with your mum’s best friend, son, it won’t happen again?’
‘It might have been a good idea.’
‘Oh come off it, Chrissie, you don’t mean that.’ Joe shook his head and sighed. ‘What a bloody mess. This isn’t how I wanted the kids to find out about us.’
Chrissie was about to make some flippant remark and then stopped herself when she realised what Joe had said. ‘Sorry? What do you mean find out about us? They weren’t supposed to find out about us at all. It was meant to be a secret, Joe. We were having a bit on the side. Do you know what you’re saying?’
Joe looked up at her and nodded. ‘Yes, I do. I’ve been thinking about it over the last few days. Maybe we ought to bring it out into the open, what if it’s time? Maybe we’ve been fooling ourselves all these years. What if we were meant to be together all along.’
Chrissie stared at him, panic and amusement mingling with surprise and disbelief. ‘Oh, come on,’ she laughed, expecting the joke to crack and break. ‘Don’t do this to me, Joe. Maybe you’ve been fooling yourself all these years but I certainly haven’t. It’s complete bollocks and you know it is. We’ve always said that it doesn’t mean anything – friends that screw that’s all, that’s what we said right from the start. No false promises, no lies, no bullshit, don’t let’s start now, for God’s sake.’
He looked so hurt that she thought he might cry. ‘Are you saying that you don’t care? That that’s how you want to keep it? That you don’t want the real thing?’
Chrissie shook her head. How could she possibly tell Joe that she had waited all her life for the real thing but not with him?
‘Things change,’ he said, in what she could only assume was meant to be a seductive serious tone.
‘For the worse as well as the better, Joe. Don’t you understand that this situation is not a recipe for happy ever after? This is not hearts and ro
ses. This is an earthquake. This is disembowelling, shit and bullets.’
He stared at her; she might as well having been talking in Serbo-Croat.
‘I’m certain that given a bit of time everyone would get used the idea,’ he said with a kind of bluff, heavy-handed confidence.
Chrissie shook her head, knowing that even if they did, she most certainly wouldn’t.
The kettle clicked off the boil, she unscrewed the Nescafe. It seemed there was no coffee left either.
Sam57 was waiting for Kate, there in the in-box. It was odd how the sight of his name on the address bar made Kate’s spirits lift. Sitting there in the lamplight she began to read:
‘I’ve been thinking about writing to you all day. I’m still working but it’s not so bad knowing that you’re here for company. It’s been a long day and I’ve still got God knows how much work to shift.
Please be careful with this lunchtime date thing. No, it’s not because I’m feeling jealous – well, okay so maybe just a little! I just think it’s a mistake to fight fire with fire. You were frank with me, Venus, so it’s my turn to return the compliment.
I know you’re feeling vulnerable and angry now but just go carefully – you have to live with the consequences of your actions and at the moment you’re possibly too close to the fire to be able to make rational decisions. In a nutshell, what I’m saying is don’t do something daft that you’ll regret later.’
Kate smiled and then started to type slowly, gathering her thoughts:
‘Don’t worry, Sam, I managed to behave myself. Trouble is, I hadn’t realised how lonely I am or how needy. I’m not sure if I should be telling you this really, but I did manage to resist temptation. It wasn’t so much resisting my lunch date as resisting myself. All these little lights in my head flashing when he looked at me.’
Kate hesitated – she couldn’t bring herself to write when Andrew touched me, when he kissed me, the way my body had warmed and wanted – Kate closed her eyes thinking about the great surge of desire that had taken her by complete surprise. It had stunned her and at the same time it was a kind of relief to know that it all still worked.