by Jan Ruth
‘Time you changed these. It all ended in disaster for them.’
‘It’s how it started that matters. And those boys. You can’t wipe them out, it’s already history.’
She wondered if Al had gone to speak to Helen. Her mother shuffled round the kitchen, going through the ritual, adding stale biscuits to a plate and then topping up the sugar bowl, even though neither of them took sugar. It was the placebo effect on full throttle. She was expecting to be exasperated by it, but found herself talking. No matter how hard she tried to be cynical, it all sounded like a complicated fairy-tale, a bit like Charles and Diana.
‘I was never sure of you and Greg, you know,’ her mother said, eventually.
‘What’s Greg got to do with it? Have you not listened to anything I’ve said?’
‘Everything. I’ve never seen you this upset. Not even at his funeral.’
*
At home, she kept herself busy and went through her mother’s paperwork, paid all the bills and discovered that her sister had withdrawn cash totalling around six thousand pounds. No great surprise. The other pertinent discovery was that of Al’s phone. It was on the floor behind the laundry basket in the bedroom, suffocated with holiday washing. Again, no great surprise. Both things were beyond frustration, because there was little she could do about either of them.
She deleted her own message from Al’s phone and noticed three missed calls from George, and a short, terse voicemail message. ‘Where the bloody hell are you? There’s a contract needs signing!’
Facebook revealed no clues, although she hadn’t expected it to. Maisie had friend requested. She clicked on the confirm button and saw lots of interactions with her friends about being pregnant, and a funny picture of Lard. She deliberated over messaging her, but what could she say? Oh, by the way, your dad might turn up with some devastating news? No, she had to stay out of it, and anyway, it had only been a couple of days, although it felt like weeks, months even, of crawling face-down across a desert.
Later in the day, she answered the door to George. He looked pointedly at Al’s sandy deck shoes in the porch, but his face gave nothing away. They exchanged the usual pleasantries and he asked all about the trip, which she answered in monosyllables between coughing and sneezing, and the conversation soon trailed to a halt.
‘Fran’s got a job,’ he said.
‘No! Really?’
‘Maisie got her an assistant manager post at the animal sanctuary, that one by Gwydir Forest.’
‘Oh! But that’s just great.’
‘Well, it’s early days but I think it’s good for her, being busy… back with the animals, you know? At least she can’t bring anything back to the flat.’
‘And Becca?’
‘Oh, fine. Well, I think so, they never really talk do they? Seems worn out most of the time, making new friends at the yard. Practically lives there.’
‘And yourself? Enjoying retirement?’
‘Learning to cook, someone has to.’
They both smiled and nodded.
Hypothetically, they twiddled their thumbs until George set his cup and saucer down. ‘Right, let’s cut to the chase, Kate. Where is he? I’ve been phoning him for two days, I’ve got the bloody agent on my back.’
‘I don’t know. Look, we had a row. He left his phone here.’
‘Typical! So, what was in this will?’
‘Money… there was just cash, and property.’
‘So what’s his big problem? Don’t tell me he feels fucking rejected again!’
‘No, no it’s more complicated than that.’
‘What then?’
‘I’ve already said too much. Please, don’t pressure me.’
A huge sigh. ‘If you speak to him, please tell him that these bloody buyers won’t wait forever, and there’s still stuff to shift from the farm, they want it totally clearing.’
‘Right, yes, I will.’
‘I want this business wrapping up!’
‘Yes, I get it.’
He grunted and made to go. She sympathised with George in a way, but being in the dark was not his sole prerogative. Yes, she felt unbearably hurt by Al’s reaction to the situation she’d found herself in, but there was clearly something bigger beneath the surface and if Al decided to forgive her then he’d have to accept that forgiveness and honesty was a two-way street. He needed to come clean about his marriage, and about everything that had gone on with Fran, and his brother.
*
Tia called as she was in the bank the following day with her mother, sorting out the mess Annemarie had made.
‘I can’t really talk now,’ she said, cupping the phone under her chin as sheets of paper were passed over for her to sign.
‘Al’s been. Thought you might want to know. Boy, was he mad.’
She scrambled to her feet and went to face the window, her mouth dry with trepidation. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Out with Jo again, talking.’
‘Did you get any blame?’
‘No, he said he overheard you speaking to me. Anyway, Jo was cool about it, I mean she was okay with me. I don’t know what’s going to happen with them though, so I guess I don’t know where that leaves you.’
Tia was typically blunt, and did nothing to spare her feelings.
‘I mean, Jo was all over him, she went to bits in the end.’
Her heartache demanded more than a shred of attention over this. At least none of it had backfired on Tia. It was a silver lining of sorts but any complacency was quickly followed by a sharp stab of jealousy; he was with the young and pretty Jo, and she was pregnant with his child.
She looked back at the desk and the new bank manager shot her a patient look, so she rung off and apologised, then concentrated on the matter in hand. In the face of Annemarie’s deceit over the deposit account, her mother had finally admitted that her youngest daughter was not to be trusted.
‘She must have been desperate.’
‘If you say so.’
Business completed, including the setting up of numerous direct debits and the cancelation of Annemarie’s authority, Kate took a small detour to hand in Annemarie’s house keys to the Redman Estates office in Conwy, while her mother sat in the car with The Archers on full volume. There was a moment of complete satisfaction when she told them to charge Mrs Annemarie Dixon the full management fee or whatever they called it, as no one in the family would be available to do it.
‘I can’t be running round there every time the tenant has a problem or they want to know how to work the washing machine.’
‘No, I quite understand.’
‘So please, cross my contact details off your file. My sister should have asked me first.’
‘We’ll write to her and explain.’
‘Good, thank you.’
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stood up to her sister in this way. Annemarie had always got in first and somehow had her cooperating, usually because it was the simplest solution. It was surprisingly guilt-free, the refusal to toe the line. The final item on her agenda was the suggestion of a daily home-help at Rhos House.
‘You can easily afford it.’
‘I might not want one,’ her mother said. ‘Can’t you do it? It’s only a bit of shopping.’
‘No, Mum, not all the time. I’ll have to look for another job.’
‘I don’t want strangers coming in.’
‘They won’t be a stranger after a couple of weeks, will they?’
‘They’ll see all me draws.’
‘I’m sure they’ve seen underwear in all its many forms.’
As she was restocking the little fridge with one slice of corned beef, a ready-cooked sausage and two pickled eggs, she tried to remember the grateful feelings she’d expressed to Brian Bennet about her parents. She partially opened the bottle of mayonnaise and took the seal from around a tub of butter, otherwise her mother couldn’t open them, and
blinked away a couple of errant tears. When she looked at the back of her mother’s white head, nodding forwards onto her shrivelled chest in the pose of an afternoon nap, an irrational fear flitted across her subconscious.
What was that about? Fear of growing old or fear of loneliness? A niggling feeling that love may have passed her by? Had she blown her second chance, her amazing second chance, with one mistake?
She found out much sooner than she’d anticipated. The following lunchtime he bounced noisily onto the drive in a cloud of black smoke, and the second he stepped from the car, her resolve to at least defend her actions buckled like cheap tin. It was easy with Mother and Annemarie, but Al was a different prospect altogether.
The desire to throw her arms around him was severely tempered by his grim expression. It was his turn to look wretched. His clothes looked like he’d slept in them, but his bleary eyes said not.
‘Hi…’ she faltered. ‘I was worried.’
‘Did I leave my phone here?’
‘Yes, yes you did.’
‘Can I come in?’
She stepped back from the door and he went silently into the snug, where they moved awkwardly around each other in the small space. She handed over his mobile then waited patiently as he switched it on and listened to several messages, the most prominent of which was George, shouting something about the contract of sale. After a minute or so of this, she began to feel like a spare part in her own home.
‘Tia called me,’ she prompted. ‘I hope you got something sorted with Jo. Did you? Al?’
He glanced up briefly from scrolling through the rest of his messages.
‘I did, yeah.’
She folded her arms, irked by his attitude. ‘Can we talk about this? All right, look, I’m sorry you had to hear it all second-hand but… are you going to look at me or not? It’s like talking to Tia!’
He held up a hand, which felt horribly like a snub and dialled a number, while her blood pounded noisily through her ears, and she paced about like Stilton held in a tight circle, champing at the bit. Eventually, someone answered his call and he ran a hand through his hair.
‘It’s me… stop yelling! Yes, I’ve pulled out… Yes, there’s a good reason. Meet me at the farm, alone… in about an hour? I’ve got something I need to tell you. It’s important.’
Finally, he slid the phone into his jacket and passed a hand over his face. ‘I’ve had a hellish three days, can’t think straight.’
‘It’s not been great for me, either. You could have called me, somehow!’
‘Look, when I overheard you on the phone to Tia, I panicked. I’m still panicking. You’ve had me running all over the country like an idiot, scaring the living daylights out of Tom and Maisie.’
She sighed at this. ‘Obviously, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.’
‘Ruby knows how to throw a good curveball, doesn’t she?’
‘You can’t blame her.’
‘I wonder how long you’d have kept it a secret?’
‘A secret? That’s a bit rich! Coming from you, owner of a fine family skeleton. Don’t you dare judge me over any of this, unless you are prepared to open your own wardrobe door.’
‘My past has got nothing to do with what’s just happened.’
‘It’s got everything to do with us though.’
She hadn’t even raised her voice but he looked crushed, as if her words had cut off his fragile life supply, and he slumped down heavily onto the sofa. Time didn’t seem to pass and there was a moment of tense suspension, a crossroads of tangled emotions.
‘What do you want to know?’ he said quietly.
‘The truth. About you and Fran. And about this… this feud with George.’
His eyes locked on to hers and she was thrown by what she saw there, almost to the point where she forgot what she was saying or asking. Everything she’d learnt about love, about herself, seemed mirrored. The abstract part of her psyche, those unexplainable aspects of herself which made her Kate, seemed to belong there.
‘I slept with Fran,’ he said.
It shot out and pierced her heart like a blunt arrow.
There was an edge of belligerence or self-loathing in his voice, as if he were maybe throwing out a challenge. She didn’t flinch, at least not outwardly, because deep down she’d already known.
‘Did you have an affair?’
He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘No. A one-off, both drunk.’
‘Go on.’
‘Nothing much to tell. I was in a bad place after my so called mother couldn’t bring herself to look at me. Helen had thrown me out and Fran was… well she was just there, miserable with George about something. It was despicable, there’s no excuse and I hate it ever happened. And I pay for it every fucking day.’
So, now she had the truth. Al had slept with his brother’s wife and yet, she felt some crazy relief that it had been a one night stand and not a full- blown affair. An affair meant love, meant deception and plotting. A one night stand meant drunken sex, it was a different animal altogether, wasn’t it?
He’d slept with Fran
‘What happened after that?’
He slid a cigarette between his lips, then his gaze dropped to the floor.
‘Al?’
‘You know the rest, years of animosity and regret.’
‘I get the feeling there’s more.’
He looked up at her with a lazy squint and shrugged, but she was clean out of ideas along this route. ‘All right, what’s going on with the farm, why have you pulled out of the sale?’
‘It’s my home,’ he said simply. ‘I’m not selling it.’
‘George will kill you.’
‘Huh, he could make life very complicated if he did that. I can easily buy him out when the money comes through. I’m going over there now, talk to him face to face,’ he said, then got wearily to his feet. She was surprised when he caught hold of her hands. ‘I can’t run any more, Kate. I know some more about who I am. I’m kind of sick of dodging about and feeling guilty. I’m not that person anymore.’
A beat. ‘And what about us?’
‘If you’ve any sense, you’ll start running in the opposite direction.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
‘Now, why would an intelligent woman like you, want to be with me after everything I’ve told you and everything I’ve done? I think you wanted a piece of me… but maybe not the whole, permanent package? You said something once, about risks bringing out the best and the worst in human nature. Can’t have one without the other, that’s what you said.’
Why would nothing come out of her mouth? He’d crossed an unforgivable line.
He’d slept with Fran.
Resignation crossed his face. He dropped her hands and made for the door, closed it quietly behind him this time, and she crossed to the window. His car backed slowly off the drive, the front bumper just clipping the kerb and making a horrible scraping noise. The gears clunked out of reverse and he sped away, a billow of toxic smoke following, eyes front.
Presently, she went to her car and brushed off the sweet, damp cherry and apple blossom from the windscreen. Was his past infidelity a problem, or was it a question of pride? How many chances of love did one come across in a single lifetime?
She drove slowly along the valley road with the windows partly open. The sharp air helped her to crystallise all those thoughts, suspicions and buried emotions which had possessed her since the day she’d met Alastair Black. He might have unearthed a new direction for himself, but could she honestly take that leap with him, or was he just too much of a gamble?
When she pulled up outside Chathill, George’s vehicle was there, parked at an odd angle, and so was Al’s wreck of a car. The farmhouse looked stripped bare, like a shell of its former self and she couldn’t help drawing a parallel with Al. The front door was wide open and a single red kite hovered silently above the roofline, which was
less reassuring.
Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly, purposefully, into the hallway; then as she heard voices, froze.
Chapter Twenty
Al.
He managed to drive around the corner from Kate’s house, then stopped the car by the park and watched people walking their dogs, kids riding bicycles, normal family stuff.
He felt like his guts had been kicked to the moon.
At first he told himself it was just tiredness and stress, but he knew what it really was. It was like being on a perpetual roller-coaster, set at such a speed that you couldn’t really contemplate jumping off. The first drop had been the death of Ruby and finding out about the heart condition, and then a mix of small loops with Jo and the baby, and then all those highs with Kate.
Kate. She hadn’t mentioned the L word all the time they’d been away and he had a horrible feeling he’d been some kind of experiment for a woman who’d wanted to taste some excitement. He’d fallen so very hard for her, but then he’d needed, felt compelled almost, to give her a chance to walk away. Like all the other women in his life.
It wasn’t pity that had him wiping his eyes, although sometimes he did feel cursed. Maybe it was some sort of Maori spell, but no, he was done with guilt and self-pity. And he was tired, spaced-out with all the driving, the meetings and explanations. If he rested his head on the steering wheel he could easily fall asleep, but there was one more conversation he had to have. He turned the key in the ignition.
The verdant green tunnel of trees along the valley was his real homecoming, and he knew for certain that his decision about Chathill was the right one, at the right time. In his mind’s eye, his children and his grandchildren were running about the paddocks and clambering over the walls, and right now it was the only vision he had of his future, the only motivation spurring him on. He had Ruby to thank for this of course, but hers was a double-sided legacy, one side safe and smooth, the other a jagged blade of uncertainty. See-sawing between good and bad was not an uncommon position of late.
When he’d set eyes on Jo and his gaze had travelled down her body to the swelling location of their child, she’d broken down. There wasn’t much to talk about because he knew he didn’t love her, she knew he didn’t love her, but they were both overwhelmed by the strange solidarity it created in providing something positive for their unexpected offspring.