First Friends

by Marcia Willett

  ‘I shall be revising like mad to begin with and in the Attack Teacher most days. Then I shall be here at Faslane for the periscope time. It would probably be more sensible if I get a cabin in Dolphin. I can concentrate better on my own. No distractions. If I pass, I could get a boat anywhere. Couldn’t you go down to Cornwall for a bit?’

  The Attack Teacher was a simulated submarine control room where the Perishers practised attacks of all types before spending six weeks on a conventional submarine doing it for real with an obliging frigate.

  It was during these six weeks that tempers frayed and people tended to crack up. If an officer failed, it was generally during this period. They would be tactfully taken aside, informed that they had failed and taken quietly off the submarine without the others knowing.

  Kate, knowing how Mark would react to failure, prayed fervently that he would pass. Meanwhile, where would she and the twins go since he didn’t want them at Alverstoke? After all, they had to live somewhere.

  When Mark left the boat at Faslane, he was given a fortnight’s leave and they went down to Cornwall. While Mark was out sailing with her brother Chris, Kate told her mother the problem.

  ‘He doesn’t really want us in Alverstoke,’ she said, as they stood together chopping vegetables and preparing the dinner, ‘and I can understand that. This is vitally important to him: his whole naval life has been leading up to this and if he fails, his career in submarines will be finished. That’s why it’s called Perisher—so many do! It seems so unfair that they just get sent back to general service as failures, especially as you have to be exceptional to be recommended for Perisher in the first place. I think it’s very important that he plays it his way and it’s not easy to study and revise in a small house with two active children. The trouble is, wherever I go, you can be sure that Mark will be posted somewhere else if he passes. I shan’t be allowed a married quarter if Mark’s not there and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to rent anywhere for just six months. And I’ve got to get the twins back into school. They were just nicely settled in Helensburgh. It would be awful to put them somewhere for six months and then move them on again.’

  ‘You’re always welcome here,’ said her mother. ‘You know that. But it won’t solve the problem of the twins’ schooling. We’d love to have you but Daddy’s got something up his sleeve. He wanted to tell you himself but he won’t be home until the weekend so I’m sure he won’t mind if I spill the beans.

  ‘The thing is that he’s sold some land on the edge of the village. Managed to get planning permission on it so he was able to ask a very respectable price for it. He wants to give the four of you a sum each—don’t worry, it leaves a tidy bit over for our old age!—but the stipulation is that you all use it for something sensible. James and Sarah are putting it towards a new roof and Chris is going to buy himself a decent car. Penny’s too young really. She’s trying to wheedle us into buying her a pony.

  ‘Now, Daddy wondered whether you might like to use it as a deposit on a little house. You know his maxim: never rent if you can buy! What d’you think? I shan’t tell you the amount, I’ll leave that to him, but it will be enough for a very reasonable deposit, I promise.’

  The idea took Kate’s breath away for a moment. Her mother smiled and went on chopping and presently Kate found her voice.

  ‘It’s unbelievable! We’ve thought of it, of course. We can afford a small mortgage but it’s always the deposit that kills it. I can never seem to get the budget organised well enough to save anything. Oh, I can’t believe it!’ She dropped the knife and hugged her mother. ‘Oh, thank you! I can’t wait to tell Mark.’ She paused.

  ‘Yes?’ Her mother saw the thoughtful look returning. ‘What now?’

  ‘Well, it still doesn’t answer the question of where. That still remains the same.’

  Her mother picked up the chopping board and swept the vegetables into a large casserole dish.

  ‘It ought to be near one of the three submarine bases,’ she said. ‘Then you’ve got a one in three chance of living in your own home, and plenty of people wanting to rent if you have to move. But which one is up to you. I hope not Faslane. Scotland’s so far away. It’s between Gosport and Devonport, I should think.’ She smiled at Kate’s expression. ‘I’m sure that I don’t need to guess which you’ll choose.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy! We could buy a little cottage on Dartmoor, couldn’t we? Just a small one.’

  ‘If you can get a mortgage. It’s always more difficult on older properties, remember. Still, you might be lucky. You could have a look when you go up to stay with Cass and Tom at Crapstone. Get the General to keep his eyes open. Anyway, it’s a thought.’

  ‘KATE AND MARK ARE going to buy a house,’ announced Cass when Tom arrived home that afternoon. ‘Kate phoned, she’s absolutely out of her mind with excitement. She wants us to keep an eye open for a nice little cottage on the moor or as near as possible.’

  ‘What’s brought that on?’ asked Tom, swinging Charlotte up and giving her a smacking kiss and ruffling Oliver’s fair head. ‘Bit sudden, isn’t it?’

  ‘Her parents are giving them the deposit. They’ve sold some land or something.’

  ‘Well, it has to happen sometime. We ought to be thinking about it, I suppose.’ He sat down at the kitchen table with Charlotte perched on one knee while Cass peeled potatoes at the sink. ‘The trouble is, where does one decide to live? Not to mention finding the deposit, of course. I should have thought that it would be more sensible to wait ‘til after Perisher. At least they’d know where Mark was going. If they buy here you can bet your boots he’ll get a boat in Faslane.’

  ‘You think he’ll pass then?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so. He’s good at his job. Not what I’d call popular but he’s a good submariner.’

  Cass wrinkled her nose and shrugged.

  ‘Oh, I know you don’t like him,’ acknowledged Tom, ‘but you women are so personal. He’s OK.’

  ‘He doesn’t want Kate and the twins with him while he’s on Perisher. Thinks he won’t be able to concentrate.’

  Tom strove to be fair. ‘Well, you’re not coming up either, are you, love? There really isn’t any point in moving twice. We’ll only be in Dolphin for a couple of months before we go north. We’ll move when I know where I’m going. I’ve arranged with the married quarters people that you can stay on here ‘til then.’

  ‘That’s fine. I can see that it’s the obvious thing to do. But poor Kate has nowhere to go for six months and she’s got to get the twins back into school. She’s going to buy here and hope for the best.’

  ‘Well, they may be lucky.’ Tom nuzzled Charlotte’s neck. ‘And how was school today?’

  ‘It was all right.’ Charlotte had been following the conversation closely. ‘If the twins come to live here they can come to my school, can’t they?’

  ‘Probably. If they’re close enough to Meavy. Would you like that?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Charlotte beamed at him. ‘You must get a submarine here, Daddy. I don’t want to move any more.’

  Cass and Tom’s eyes met briefly and Tom gave Charlotte a hug.

  ‘I shall do my very best. Goodness! Is that the time? Come on, I’m missing the Magic Roundabout!’

  MEANWHILE, THERE WAS THE question of a dog. For a long time, Kate had been promising the twins—and herself—that they should have one. Perhaps, if they were going to have their own home at last, that time had come. Finally the breed was decided on: it was to be a golden retriever. A name was discussed ad nauseam. The twins, besotted with The Hobbit, wanted Bilbo. Kate havered. She felt that they should first find the puppy and then name it.

  ‘She’s right,’ nodded Cass, with whom they were staying at Crap-stone. ‘You need to see puppies—and babies—before you can decide on names, or you can get it wrong. Imagine if I’d called Oliver “Bert,” say, or “Sid.” It wouldn’t be him, would it?’

  The twins roared with laughter. Bert and Sid seemed such wildly im
probable names. Oliver smiled serenely and ate a cup cake. Kate, not for the first time, had a strange feeling that he was older than all of them, herself included.

  ‘And what does Charlotte think?’ she asked, retrieving the last cup cake and giving it to her as she sat, quiet as always, listening and watching. ‘What would you call a puppy, Charlotte?’

  ‘Huckle,’ returned Charlotte, who was a Richard Scarry fan.

  ‘And why not?’ Kate smiled at her. ‘It’s a jolly nice name. What do you say, Oliver?’

  Oliver deftly took the cake from which Charlotte had removed the silver paper and ate it.

  ‘Dog,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘I’d call it dog.’

  THE SUMMER BALL AT HMS Drake, the shore establishment at Devonport dockyard, saw them all gathered together again.

  ‘Quite the old gang, isn’t it?’ Cass slid into her place and put her evening bag on the table. ‘Nice to be at a ball again. Who’s the dark girl dancing with Tom? I haven’t seen her before, have I?’

  ‘She’s called Harriet,’ said Mark II, following Cass’s gaze. ‘She’s Ralph Masters’ new girlfriend. He’s just come down from Dolphin. Seems he’s an old friend of Tom’s.’

  ‘That’s right. They were on Optimist together. What fun. I must meet her.’ She smiled round the table and reached for a bottle of wine. ‘Just think! By the time the Summer Ball comes we could all be Captains’ Wives. Think of the glory! And about time, too! What’s that line? “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Well, that’s us. To be honest, I think we deserve it almost as much as they do.’

  ‘I must say,’ said Felicity, sipping contentedly at her wine, ‘that I’m enjoying every minute of it. I do hope Tom makes it, Cass. The failure rate seems pretty high at the moment. The relief when Mark phoned to say that he’d passed, I can’t tell you! They’d been drinking all the way in on the James Bond boat and he was pissed as a rat when he got to the phone. Mind you, everyone said that he’d pass. Who’s Teacher now?’

  Teacher was the examining officer in whose hands the Perishers’ careers were held.

  ‘Jess Hoxworth,’ said Cass unperturbed. ‘He’s an absolute sweetie. Great friend of mine.’

  Kate could almost hear Felicity gnashing her teeth and grinned to herself. Poor old Felicity hated it when Cass claimed friendship with Senior Officers to whom Tom should be almost too overawed to speak. Before she could intervene, however, George was rising from his seat further along the table and gesturing that Felicity should dance with him. She went without a backward glance and Cass sighed with pleasure.

  ‘Felicity-baiting should become a national sport,’ she sighed, ‘such fun.’

  ‘I see she’s still got George on a lead,’ observed Kate. ‘I gather that your little fling with him didn’t last too long.’

  ‘You know me, lovey! Variety is the spice of life and all that.’

  Beautiful as ever, elegant in her long gown, Cass seemed untouched by the passing years and yet another baby.

  ‘I must say, Cass, that you don’t look like a mother of three,’ said Kate enviously. ‘How on earth do you do it?’

  ‘It’s because I never worry about things. I take everything as it comes. After all, what a life! Who’d be a naval wife? Still, it has its compensations.’ Cass smiled reminiscently.

  ‘Does it?’ Kate snorted. ‘Name one: always moving house, separations, ghastly cocktail parties, everything made as difficult as possible. For instance, why does the Navy always go to Harbour Stations at seven in the morning? Why not lunchtime? Three in the afternoon? No. We all have to be up at dawn, seeing them off . . .

  ‘And the bloody boat breaks down just outside the breakwater, they all arrive back unexpectedly and you have to do it all over again the next day.’

  They burst out laughing.

  ‘I remember that happening three times with one boat. Which one was it, Cass?’

  ‘The third time it was very embarrassing,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I really didn’t think that it could happen the third day running and . . . Well, it was very embarrassing.’ She grimaced. ‘Ever played Russian roulette, Kate? It’s very exciting. So what do you think of my new baby? He’s just like Tom. Told you he would be, didn’t I?’

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  ‘One of these days, Cass,’ Kate said at last, ‘you’re going to get the bullet!’

  IN THE END, MARK had left for Gosport before Kate found her cottage. She finally tracked it down on the edge of the moor behind Walkhampton, a small stone house with a slate roof and just enough accommodation. Fortunately, the owners had re-wired and re-plumbed it. It had a beamed sitting room with a wood-burning stove, a fair-sized kitchen with a Rayburn and another smaller room that could double as a study and dining room. There was a very basic lavatory in a lean-to at the back. Upstairs there were two good-sized bedrooms, also beamed, the third having been sacrificed to make the bathroom and loo. It had a small but delightful cottage garden in the corner of which stood two adjoining stone outbuildings; one was the log store and garden shed, the other was just big enough to house a car. Kate fell in love with it all at once and plunged headlong into mortgages, solicitors, surveyors and all the other horrors of buying a house. She loved every minute of it because she never imagined that anything would go wrong or that she would be thwarted in her desire to own it. And she was right. Beginner’s luck!

  She wrote reams to Mark, who had hurried down for a quick approving glance and was now totally absorbed in Perisher.

  Thank goodness that it’s such a small house, she thought, as she hurried round buying second-hand furniture at bargain prices, and that it’s got so many cupboards. She threw bright rugs over worn armchairs, arranged their few precious pictures on the walls and bought a brand new double bed. The twins had their own bunk beds now and painted chests of drawers. Her greatest find, though, was an old pine dresser on which she arranged pretty china and ornaments and this, with an old scrubbed deal table and some rickety chairs, made her kitchen complete.

  ‘ . . . add as we go along,’ she wrote to Mark, ‘but at least we’ve got the essentials. Bookshelves are a problem. I hope you’re good with a drill! I can’t wait for you to see what I’ve done. Thank goodness all the walls were painted white. I can go to town on the colours for other things. It would be lovely to see you for a weekend if you could get away like Tom did but I know how busy you must be. Don’t overdo it . . . ’

  He came down for a weekend before he went to Faslane to join the submarine that had been chosen to carry out the Perisher running. He looked pale and strained and was smoking very heavily. His interest in the cottage and how the twins had settled in to school was cursory and his preoccupation and anxiety were patent.

  They left home on the Monday morning, Mark driving, to drop the twins off at school and then to Plymouth station where he was to catch the train. When they arrived he jumped quickly out of the car, taking his grip from the back seat. When Kate joined him on the pavement, he gave her a perfunctory kiss and turned to go. Everything had been said already and, as usual, they were like strangers, polite and distant.

  ‘Good luck, Mark. I’ll be thinking of you.’

  He smiled pitifully, his face set and pale, waved and set off towards the ticket office.

  Kate watched him go. She felt exactly the same as she had when the twins had gone into their classroom on their first day at school: anguish, fear and a longing to rush in and take them away again, to shield them from any hardship or danger.

  She climbed into the car and set off back towards Walkhampton. As usual she felt muddled and confused. Mark was obviously an efficient officer. He had risen in his career from job to job, been all over the world, handled crises and air travel and managed in many foreign countries. Why, then, should she feel the need to protect him?

  When it came to dealing with anything outside the Navy with its rules and regulations which provided him with a framework in which he felt comfortable—and, a
s far as Mark was concerned, that included married life—he buckled at the knees. That strange mixture of vulnerability and cruelty was so difficult to combat. She was coming to the conclusion that he was a bully. He kept up a campaign of psychological warfare designed to keep her off-balance. But why? Why couldn’t he simply trust her and relax in her love and loyalty? Perhaps he was afraid that she may demand too much in return. She was beginning to realise that she was the stronger character and yet she feared him.

  The next few weeks seemed endless.

  Kate stayed at home as much as possible in case Mark should telephone. He sometimes did this if he found himself ashore for an evening’s relaxation. Their conversations were strained and monosyllabic: yes, he was fine; yes, it was tough; yes, a few more had been thrown off the course. He told her that if he hadn’t phoned by eleven o’clock that meant he had survived another day and she took to waiting up until ten past, twenty past, just in case. She knew that he could survive until the final day and still fail. Teacher gave them the maximum opportunity to get it right. Kate began to rehearse conversations, practising how she would respond if he failed whilst feeling disloyal to be even contemplating it. One morning, as she returned from taking the twins to school, she heard the telephone ringing. She raced into the cottage and seized the receiver.

  ‘Kate?’ It was Mark’s voice. It sounded slurred and strange.

  Kate’s heart seemed to stop beating altogether and her brain leapt hither and thither trying to remember her rehearsed replies.

  ‘Hello. Yes, it’s me. Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, Kate, I’m through! I’ve passed! Isn’t it fantastic?’

  He sounded as if he might burst into tears and Kate realised that she was nodding wordlessly, her eyes tight shut with relief.