Fergus looks at his coffee with a grim determination.
‘Have I made it too strong again?’ I ask him, wondering at his expression.
‘Nope, it’s fine.’ He smiles and then, as if he’s remembered something, says, ‘It’s just that you never know if today’s the day you’ll get the chop, you know.’
I lean against him, my arm about his shoulder.
‘Well, if it is, it is. We’ll be fine. You’ll get a bit of redundancy, won’t you?’
Fergus shrugs and nods. ‘A bit, yeah. And I’ve been looking about for something else, but pretty much the whole industry is in the same situation right now. No one’s hiring. I could always do some support work somewhere I suppose.’
Dora strolls into the kitchen with my honeymoon dressing gown on reading a letter printed on thick cream paper.
‘Your post came,’ she tells me, nodding at the letter. ‘“Dear Katherine, thank you for your recent application. I regret to inform that you that the post you applied for has already been filled …”’ Disappointment overtakes the violent urges her habitual intrusion of my privacy has always evoked in me. ‘“However, due to your skills and experience we would like to meet you for an informal lunch in the near future to asses your eligibility for any future positions that may arise, Yours Sincerely blah blah blah blah.”’ Dora drops the letter on to the counter. ‘Well, hold the front page,’ she says dryly as she pours herself a coffee.
I look at Fergus and smile.
‘There is a god,’ he says, and we hug, before kissing each other deeply.
‘Well, I’d better get off. See you, Dora.’ He kisses me on the cheek. ‘Tell that baby I hope she enjoyed her lie-in after her two-hour playing session with Daddy at three o’clock this morning. Do you know that after about an hour I kept hallucinating …?’
I follow him to the door and watch him disappear over the bend of the hill. It’s a beautiful morning, already warm and bright, with the smell of suburban hedges and flowers heavy in the air. The sort of place where nothing bad ever happens.
With a sudden impulse I step out barefoot on to the warm paving stone and walk lightly on to the street. Glancing quickly around, I reach up to the lowest branches of the tree outside our house and pull off some blossom, enough to make a posy.
‘What are you doing? Dora questions me from the door frame.
I smile at her and run full tilt back into the hall, wiping my bare feet on the dormat.
‘These are for Mum, for her anniversary. I want to put them next to that photo of us, the one where we’re wearing matching head scarves. I need to find a milk bottle … Do you even get milk bottles these days?’
Dora follows me into the kitchen shaking her head and hands me a small vase.
‘Your mum would love that. Here, try this.’ She appraises me carefully. ‘You don’t look like you’re about to leave him for the gardener,’ Dora says as I return to the kitchen. ‘You look like you’re about to do a photo shoot with Hello! magazine. “Cinderella reveals all – My perfect life with royal hubby”.’
I sigh and sit on a stool at the table, burying my head in my hands.
‘I’m not! I’m not about to leave him,’ I protest. ‘I love him, I … God, I’m not leaving him,’ I say, suddenly exhausted and desperate to go back to bed again and just sleep. If only I hadn’t seen Gareth that morning, if only I’d got on that train and gone to see Fergus. Then we’d have all of this new communication and happiness and I’d have none of the … guilt.
Dora raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Oh yeah? Well then why? Why did you shag … Gareth, is it? Cute, yes, marriage-wrecking material no, and I know you, Kits you’re not the type to do it just for kicks.’
I look out into the garden. The lawn that we laid together has started to grow out of control, inching thickly above the soft velvet surface I had imagined into a haven for angry cats.
‘I don’t know why it happened. I … Fergus and I had a big fight, just one of many over the last few weeks. We’ve both been tired, both had our own problems, both too scared to tell the other one because neither one of us wanted to admit things weren’t perfect … You know, when everyone tells you how right you are together it’s scary to think that they might be wrong, do you know what I mean?’
Dora nods. ‘Well, yeah, but if it isn’t you two then it’s no one and we all might as well go home,’ she says mildly. ‘And?’
I told her about the dinner and the port and me telling him I’d never loved him and she winced and grimaced in all the right places.
‘So the next day he flounced out without speaking, refused my calls and I was all set to go up to London and see him, to apologise and … well, Gareth just … appeared out of nowhere. He said did I fancy a ride out to the country, and he asked me about Mum and, well, I don’t know, he seemed like he might understand, so I told him. And then he sort of lunged at me and …’ I struggle to keep a hold of my voice. ‘It just happened. It was horrible. It was nothing.’
Dora examines me closely. ‘Then why did you let him do it? You could have just said “thanks but no thanks”.’
I bite my lip hard hoping for the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
‘I didn’t let him do it. I asked him not to do it but he did it anyway.’
It takes a moment for Dora’s face to clear with the realisation of what I’m saying.
‘Dora, please, don’t say anything, please. It was horrible – horrible – and I just want to forget about it, that’s all,’ I say, tears streaming down my face.
Dora winds her arms around my neck and leans her forehead against mine.
‘Kitty, shhh. Kitty.’ She takes my face between her hands. ‘You’re telling me that he … that he raped you, aren’t you?’
I nod, tasting the warmth of silent tears on my lips, desperately holding on to the scream in my heart.
‘You can’t forget about it, Kitty,’ Dora whispers. ‘You can’t, you have to tell … people. You have to tell Fergus, and the police. People. You can’t let him get away with it. It’ll kill you!’
I shake my head and begin trembling at the very thought of it.
‘No, Dora, please, please,’ I plead with her. ‘I can’t tell anyone. Fergus will kill him, it will tear us apart, he won’t ever be able to understand. Please, Dora. If Fergus finds out then Gareth has won. I was foolish enough to think that he wanted me, that he might even care about me, but he didn’t want me at all, he just wanted to destroy someone else’s happiness. He wanted to make me into nothing. If Fergus finds out then he’ll have succeeded.’
Dora shakes her head, her eyes bright with fierce anger. ‘You’re wrong, Kitty. Fergus would never judge you like that, he loves you. He’d be devastated, but …’
‘No!’ My voice rises. ‘You know me, Dora, better than anyone. You know I can do this. You know that if I try very hard I can just make it go away. Help me, okay, please just help me.’
Dora watches me silently for a moment.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she says at last. ‘But if that bastard does the same thing to another woman, what then? How will you feel then?’
I turn my head away from her. ‘I can’t think about anything else now, I just need to know if you’ll help me?’
Dora turns my face back to look at her. ‘Of course I’ll help you,’ she says. ‘And if I ever see him, I’ll fucking kill him.’
I know that she means it. The tension shatters as Ella’s shouts reverberate through the house.
‘I’ll go,’ Dora says quickly. ‘Can I go?’
I stare at her, wiping away useless tears. ‘Are you sure?’ I say, nonplussed, numbed.
‘Yeah, unless you think I’ll scare her or drop her or something?’ She seems to consider it a real possibility.
‘No, no. Go for it. She’ll need a change, though …’ I call after her, but she is already out of the door and taking the stairs two at a time. I take a deep breath and begin to make a list of everything I have to do today, j
ust a normal, happy day like any other.
Dora hangs up the receiver and hastily scribbles an address on the back of an envelope with Ella sitting on her knee, attempting to chew the very same pen Dora is writing with.
‘My God, no wonder your mum’s gone fruit loops,’ Dora says to her as if she were conversing with a twenty-year-old. ‘You’re a mentalist. When do you grow out of this chewing thing and progress to, I don’t know, being interested in shopping?’
I watch them getting on like a house on fire in pure disbelief. I mean, I know Dora’s been through a lot recently, and I know she’s found the strength to pull herself back from the edge after taking smack again, but unless the road to Damascus cut across the Euston to Milton Keynes line somewhere between Harrow and Wealdstone and Kings Langley, I can’t see why she has suddenly decided to like, even appear to love, my child. Or any child for that matter. Must be some kind of genetic imperative.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask her as she sings Ella her own particular brand of nursery rhyme.
‘Me? Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just realised that the whole godmother thing is coming round and I thought I’d better start campaigning, you know how it is. Don’t want that bloody Camille to get all the glory.’ She exchanges a frown with Ella. ‘Right now, how about … Ride a cockhorse to dum de-dah dooo! La de da dee something da, flipperty floo …’ she sings and Ella laughs her head off.
‘So, where is Hemel Hempstead? Sounds like the third ring of hell. There’s an NA meeting there today at eleven.’ She turns back to Ella. ‘She shall have doooby-do something she stuuuufff! Why isn’t there one in Berkhamsted? I mean, I have to get a sodding bus to get to this place and I bet they don’t even have proper shops. Honestly, the country.’
I smile apologetically. ‘It’s not far on the bus, the stop is on the high street. Will you be all right on your own because I’m supposed to be having a costume fitting at Clare’s, but I could postpone it and come with you …?’
Dora shakes her head. ‘No, don’t want some frumpy old mother and her kid cramping my style, do we Ells. I’ve yet to explore the sexual proclivities of the Home Counties. It could be a rich new vein … couldn’t it? Yes, it could, yes it could!’ She smiles stupidly at Ella.
‘Dora, please don’t get involved with another NA person. Don’t take it personally, but the ones I’ve met seem to be really shocking losers, or maybe that’s just your taste in friends. Find someone who’s, you know, normal, or at least bordering on it.’
Dora shrugs, looking momentarily crestfallen. ‘I’ve given up on relationships anyhow.’
She gathers herself up and sets Ella on the floor. ‘Okay, well, I’ll be off, then, to Hemel Hempstead. Wish me luck. If I’m not back by three call the police, tell them I’ve been kidnapped for my cosmopolitan taste and good shoes.’
I roll my eyes and Ella waves enthusiastically as we see Dora off. As she is about to leave she pauses in the door frame and looks at me hard.
‘I’m not sure I can pretend this didn’t happen to you, Kitty, even if you can,’ she says.
I smile brightly.
‘You can. You have to, for me, okay? It’ll be okay, I promise.’
I have never seen her look so sad as in that moment before she turns to walk away.
‘Come on you,’ I say to Ella once the house is empty. ‘We’ve only got an hour and half to get you ready and go less than half a mile down the road. It’s going to be very tight.’
In fact, it is two hours later when I finally ring Clare’s bell. I’m sticky, flustered and hot. The sunburn I picked up on the beacon has intensified and reddened as a cruel reminder and I feel uncomfortably huge in this summer shift dress that makes no effort to hold in my stomach or even give me a waist.
‘Helloooo?’ Clare’s greeting through the intercom seems oddly flirtatious.
‘Hi, it’s me. Kitty.’ I add my name as an afterthought.
‘Oh! Kitty! God, sorry, I forgot you were coming over. Come up!’ Her cheeryness seems to be edged with a touch of hysteria, and as I park the buggy and lug Ella up the two flights of stairs, it occurs to me that maybe she thought I was the man she was so excited to tell me about. Her front door is on the latch and I push it open to hear her finishing a telephone call.
‘If you want that, then don’t come back here! Okay, okay. I’ll see you later,’ she’s almost whispering. ‘Love you. Bye.’
I pause in the doorway, embarrassed to have caught her trysting with her mystery man.
‘Hi!’ I shout loudly, waiting for a second in the doorway before I go in.
‘Hiya. So sorry. Ted and I slept in and I’ve only just got up. I’d forgotten we were fitting your dress today. Actually, I’d forgotten what day it was. Tea?’
I put Ella on the floor and nod. ‘Mmmm, please. So am I going to meet him then?’
Clare avoids my eye. ‘Um, oh, eventually, I expect. I, oh Christ, I forgot. I’ve got no milk! How about a Coke and we’ll get started?’
I nod and smile as Ella and Ted begin their usual Mexican stand-off over Ted’s musical telephone.
‘Soooo, who is he then? How did you meet him?’ I call into the kitchen. ‘I’m so excited, and to think I was trying to fix you up! You didn’t need my help after all, you dark horse.’
‘Um, oh, he was … at the college when I did my course? We sort of knew each other a bit from around town and we just hit it off. We’re just keeping it quiet for now though.’ Clare comes back into the room and hands me a glass of flat Coke.
‘He’s not married, is he?’ I ask, scandalised, almost hoping the answer will be yes.
‘No! No, it’s just …’ The turmoil in Clare’s face seems to resolve itself. ‘You know me, I have about as much luck with men as … well, I don’t know, but not much luck, and I sort of feel that if I crow about it and how happy I am it’ll go wrong and I’ll be left feeling embarrassed again.’
I shrug. I understand how that feels.
‘Fair enough, as long as you’re happy. Are you happy?’
Clare’s face lights up. ‘Oh yeah, I am. Almost too much.’ She surveys me critically. ‘Right, now get your kit off. The dress is through there on the bed, so if you put it on and then come back out here I can start pinning it.’
For a moment, in the quiet environs of Clare’s plainly decorated, corporation-style bedroom, and after the acres and acres of baby-pink netting and satin have settled around me, I pause and look at myself in her wardrobe mirror. It’s a fairy-tale dress that Clare has made, and I’m certain that really she’s made it for herself. All of the other costumes have been loosely based around the film version of Calamity Jane, but this dress is purely Clare’s imagination made real. It’s her dress, the one she dreams of dancing with her Prince Charming in, and she’s had to make it for someone else. It looks wrong on me somehow. I mean it’s all the wrong size, but beyond that it clashes with my pale and burnt skin and dark hair. And more than that, its exuberance, its optimistic romanticism, is meant for someone else. Someone who still believes.
On Clare it would look fabulous.
‘Come on then!’ Clare calls anxiously from the next room. I guess she’s got a meeting planned with Mr Mystery later on.
‘Oooh, doesn’t Mummy look lovely?’ Clare asks Ella as I swish into the room. Ella responds by gazing up at me with a dumbfounded expression before returning to beating up Ted’s Tellytubbie with a wooden mallet.
I stand on a stool and Clare kneels at my feet as she begins to hem the dress.
‘So how are you feeling about Monday, then? Excited?’ she asks me through a mouthful of pins.
‘Um, excited? No. Sick and terrified? More than you can know. I fully expect to be terrible.’ I glance down at the dress. ‘It should be you, anyway.’
Clare straightens up and begins to pin in the waist.
‘Oh, you’ve lost a bit of weight since we cut this,’ she says with a smile.
I stare down at myself incredulously. ‘No I haven’t. I can
’t have. Have I? Do you mean I was fatter than this?’
Clare grins, shaking her head. ‘You’re not fat.’
I smile, absurdly pleased with myself, and start humming ‘A Woman’s Touch’. After a while Clare chimes in with the harmony, and before we know it we are regaling our children with the full-length version, polkas around the room included.
We collapse on to her sofa full of laughter and Clare gives me the once-over with a critical eye.
‘You look like you’re born to wear this,’ she says. ‘Beautiful.’
‘Yeah, right tasty.’ Gareth leans in the door frame, his gaze lingering too long on my body. I take a step back, tripping over the hem of the dress.
‘Get out!’ I say quietly. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, following me here?!’ Get out, you’re not welcome.’
Clare looks from me to Gareth to me and then back again.
‘I know you fired him and all, Kitty, but steady on,’ she says with half a smile, and then to Gareth. ‘I thought you weren’t coming back till after?’
I close my eyes and hope that I’m dreaming.
‘Well, I wasn’t,’ I hear Gareth say. ‘And then I thought I couldn’t miss out on the chance to see my ex-boss in all her glory … again.’
Of course. Gareth is Clare’s secret lover. Somehow it seems inevitable that it should be.
‘Since when?’ I manage to say to Clare, turning my face away from Gareth.
‘Well, we’ve been “together” since the weekend?’ Clare allows herself a small shy smile. ‘I wasn’t lying to you, Kitty, I did meet him after my college course. He just turned up one day and asked me for a coffee and it went from there, didn’t it? And then things got a bit heated and we sort of just got together. Ted loves him.’
I stare at Gareth, shaking my head in disbelief.
‘You were with Clare when you, when we …?’
Gareth shrugs.
‘So? Anyway, I thought you wanted to keep it quiet?’ The insolent tone in his voice, the indifferent expression on his face, every single thing about him is intolerable. I wish I could find a way to hurt him with my loathing, but somehow I know he’s impervious to anything that I might feel.
After Ever After Page 34