Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  She moved her leg gently up and down.

  "I, uh, well, yes, I suppose it has."

  He was smiling now. Kate could feel him beginning to harden again under her thigh. The St Christopher was a cold disc between her breasts as she slid on top of him. "It's a good job you said that."

  CHAPTER 13

  At times during the next three weeks Kate would feel an almost superstitious distrust of being so happy. It would come over her without warning, a pessimistic conviction that this couldn't last, that there would have to be a price to pay. Then the feeling would pass, a brief cloud over the sun, and she would be caught up again in the pleasure of the present.

  The sex had quickly improved. Alex was an enthusiastic if not experienced lover, and they coupled like eager teenagers, delighting in each other until both of them were sore and aching. It seemed strange at first. Even after almost four years, Kate found that her body remembered the contours and smell of Paul. He had been heavier and hairier than Alex, with a blunt, bludgeoning approach she had at first mistaken for passion, before realising it was only selfishness.

  But it didn't take long before the tactile memories of her former lover were supplanted by the new.

  They didn't go out often. Kate would hurry home at night, open a bottle of wine and start chopping- meat and vegetables. Alex would go to her flat straight from work and they would cook the meal together in an intimate awareness of the other's presence. Sometimes they would prolong the anticipation until afterwards, but often their clothes would be scattered over the floor, and they would make love while the pots bubbled unnoticed on the cooker.

  There were times, though, when Alex would fall into a quiet mood, lost in some internal world. Kate liked watching him then, seeing his face take on an unguarded, almost melancholy cast. But while she enjoyed being able to study him in these moments as she would a picture, at her leisure, there was also a muted sense of exclusion. Once he looked up without warning and caught her watching him. For an instant his face seemed blank of recognition, and in a weightless second of panic Kate felt a sudden conviction that she didn't know him, that this was some stranger. Then he blinked and smiled, and was Alex again.

  "What?" he said.

  Kate went over and hugged him. "You were miles away. What were you thinking about?"

  "Nothing much. Just miles away, like you said."

  The moment had passed, but not without leaving a faint trace of itself, diminished but lingering like the smell of coffee in a room. To dispel it, Kate asked something she had been meaning to for some days. "Why don't we go to your flat sometime?"

  Alex hesitated. "Why?"

  "Because I'd like to see where you live. You know, see if you're messy or tidy. What sort of books you've got."

  "I can tell you."

  "It isn't the same. What's the matter? Are you hiding something there?"

  It was meant as a joke, but Alex didn't laugh. "No, of course not."

  She felt a rekindling of unease. "Why not, then?" she asked, serious now.

  "It's just…" He was frowning, not looking at her. Then he sighed. "Well, it's a bit of a dump, that's all. I haven't bothered doing anything to it, because I wasn't planning on staying there very long. I suppose I'd be embarrassed for you to see it."

  The stirrings of alarm that Kate had begun to feel receded.

  "There's no need to be. I wouldn't mind."

  "No, but I would." He smiled. "If you want to go there, we can do. But give me a few days to tidy up first, okay?"

  She grinned. "Okay." Relieved, she put it from her mind. She wasn't in any hurry. There was plenty of time.

  Besides, she enjoyed being in her flat with Alex. The first weekend there they had spent almost entirely in bed. They had ventured into the kitchen occasionally to prepare a snack, and once they had taken the quilt into the lounge, where they spread it on the floor to watch For Whom the Bell Tolls while rain lashed the window, and the gas fire murmured its blue dance. The familiar surroundings, which had once felt so lonely, now seemed intimate and cosy. Often they would just lay and talk. Alex was a good listener, and she found herself opening up to him more and more, sometimes about incidents she had almost forgotten. One evening she told him about going alone to the cinema when she was a little girl. She had intended the story to be funny, but Alex seemed to see past the humour.

  "How long ago did your parents die?" he asked, when she had finished. They were lying on the settee, naked after sex. Kate's head was resting in the crook of his arm.

  She counted back, lightly tracing a pattern on his chest. "My mother died when I was nineteen. My father died a year before that, just after I'd gone to university."

  "Do you miss them?"

  The question sobered her. She found she couldn't give a simple answer. "I'd have liked them to meet you," she said.

  Alex didn't comment. Kate watched the hairs on his chest spring back up in the wake of her fingers. "No, I don't suppose I do miss them, in the conventional sense. Not in the way I'd miss someone like Lucy. I loved them, and it was a jolt when they died, but we didn't see much of each other once I'd left home. And we didn't know what to talk about when we did."

  "Didn't you get on with them?"

  It wasn't something Kate let herself think about very often, but now she considered it. "It wasn't that we didn't get on, so much. It was more that we just didn't understand each other. We didn't seem to have anything in common. I always felt I was never who or what they wanted me to be." She gave a quiet laugh. "I sometimes wondered if there hadn't been some mix-up at the hospital and they'd been given the wrong baby by mistake. They'd wanted a boy, for a start. Then my mother found out she couldn't have any more children after me. So I was a big disappointment all around."

  "Did they actually say that?"

  "Not in so many words. But sometimes my mother used to act like she resented me, because I wasn't the boy she'd wanted to present my father with. Everything had to fall in with what he wanted. It was like there was only one person in the house who counted. He expected to have his own way, and my mother saw her role as making sure he got it. And I was expected to go along with that as well. It was probably a relief for everybody when I left home."

  She looked up at Alex. "What about you?"

  "me?"

  "What was your childhood like?"

  She felt him shift slightly. "Nothing exceptional. Abroad every year for holidays, bikes at Christmas. Boringly normal, I suppose."

  "How about your brothers? Did you get on with them?"

  "Oh, yes. I mean, there was a bit of tormenting went on, with me being the youngest, but it was always good-natured. They were quite protective, really."

  Kate fingered the solid coldness of the St Christopher on his chest. She could feel it sometimes during their lovemaking, its coolness tracing rhythmic patterns on her breasts. "Tell me about your grandmother."

  "My Gran? What about?"

  "Just what she was like. You said you were close."

  Alex was quiet for so long she thought he wasn't going to reply. When he did his voice had softened. "She was great. If I'd cut myself, or got in trouble, or…or whatever, I could always go to my Gran and tell her, and she'd listen. And when I'd done something wrong, she'd tell me, but she'd never get cross, or shout or hit me. She was always there." He stared at the ceiling. His eyes were bright.

  "How old were you when she died?" Kate asked.

  "Fifteen. She gave me this," he touched the St Christopher, "the week before she died. It'd belonged to my grandad, and she said I should wear it because it'd bring me luck. It was almost like she knew she wasn't going to be there to look out for me for much longer." He stopped. "You were saying about your parents," he went on in a brisker tone. "Did you get on any better with your mother after your father died?"

  Kate let him change the subject. "There wasn't really any difference. I hoped that she might come out of his shadow, you know? Start living her own life. But she never did. It was like she lo
st interest in everything. Every time I came home from university, I could see how she'd deteriorated. It was horrible. It was like she was winding down, as though she'd no reason to carry on living without him. She kept all his clothes, all his things, and talked about him as if he was still there. She'd even cook his favourite meals, even stuff she didn't like, right up to when she died." She paused, remembering. "I still can't make up my mind if it was love or not. It never seemed healthy. I always told myself I'd never let anyone dominate me like that."

  "You nearly did, though."

  She glanced at Alex. Two patches of colour burned on his cheeks. "You're not jealous of Paul, are you?" she asked.

  He tried to sound dismissive. "No, of course not." He avoided her eyes. "I just don't like to think of you with someone like that, that's all."

  Part amused, part annoyed, Kate wriggled around until she was facing him. "That's not a very professional attitude, is it? I thought psychologists were above such things?"

  "Perhaps…perhaps I'm not a very good psychologist." She had the impression that he had changed his mind at the last second about what he was going to say.

  "I'd have thought you'd be pretty good," she said. "You're a good listener. That's a lot of what psychology's about, isn't it?"

  "Oh, yeah. There's plenty of listening, but that's about all. Psychologists don't actually do anything." His tone was uncharacteristically bitter.

  Wanting to pull him out of his suddenly dark mood, Kate bent her head and lightly nipped the flesh of his chest in her teeth. "I'd better keep you busy, then."

  The phone rang later that same evening. Usually she ignored it when Alex was there, letting the answering machine take the message, but this time she was passing when it trilled out. She wavered, tempted to walk past, then reluctantly picked up the receiver.

  "Hi, Kate," Lucy said, cheerfully. "Just thought I'd give you a ring and make sure you weren't dead."

  Kate felt a prod of conscience. She hadn't spoken to Lucy since telling her she was meeting Alex for the final time. She glanced involuntarily towards the bedroom. "Sorry, I've been meaning to, but -"

  "I know, I know, you've got a lot on at work. Never mind. Anyway, what happened the other night? Did you see Alex?"

  "Uh…yes."

  "How did it go?"

  "Okay, I suppose."

  "So that's it, then? You told him you're not going to see him any more?" Lucy's disapproval was obvious.

  "Er…he's here now, actually."

  There was a pause. "Oh, really?" Kate could almost hear her smirking. "The farewell dinner didn't work out quite as you'd planned, then?" Lucy said.

  "Not exactly."

  "Well, I was going to invite you over for lunch tomorrow, but I dare say now you'll be busy. Unless you wanted to bring Alex as well?"

  "Thanks, but I think we'll pass."

  "I thought you might. Well, give Alex my love—if you've any left—and I'll talk to you next week. Oh, and, Kate?"

  "What?"

  Lucy was laughing. "Don't forget to use a contraceptive."

  The irony of her timing wasn't lost on Kate. She wasn't sure if waiting until she'd started the donor insemination treatment before sleeping with Alex qualified as perversity or just karma. Whichever, it changed everything.

  Kate knew there were issues that had to be faced; about the clinic, about her relationship with Alex. But she couldn't bring herself to worry about them. Her life, at last, seemed to have achieved its natural, preordained balance. She felt a rightness about it all, a certainty that this was how things were meant to be, that now everything would fall into place.

  It seemed inevitable that she would miss her period. She waited several days before mentioning it to Alex. "You said when I first met you that you liked the idea of fatherhood without the responsibility," she said. "Do you still feel the same way?"

  They lay folded around each other in bed. His arm was draped over her in the darkness.

  "Why?"

  She toyed with the St Christopher on his chest, winding the silver chain around her finger, then off. "It isn't definite, but I went to the doctor's today for a pregnancy test."

  She waited. "When will you know?"

  "Sometime next week."

  She could have found out sooner, by buying a kit and testing herself. But even if it had been positive, she wouldn't have entirely believed it. She didn't want to risk the disappointment of making a mistake. Having it confirmed by a doctor would somehow make it more official. More real.

  Kate looked up towards Alex's face, almost invisible in the dark. "I just want you to know that you're not under any obligation. This—uh—doesn't change anything."

  It seemed a long time before he spoke. "It does for me."

  His voice was throaty. Kate let go of the chain. Unable to speak, she laid her head on his chest, glad he couldn't see the dampness on her cheeks.

  She was never sure why she didn't tell him exactly when the result of the test would be through. The doctor had told her which day to phone in, but something made her hold that back from Alex. She told herself that she wanted to surprise him, to let him believe they wouldn't know until later in the week. But she knew there was a more selfish reason. She wanted to keep that much for herself.

  On the morning she was to phone for the result they ate breakfast together at her cramped breakfast bar in the kitchen. Alex had to leave before she did, and Kate kissed him and watched him go down the stairs to the front door. At the bottom he turned and waved, and seeing him there, grinning, his dark hair tufted, Kate almost gave in and told him. Then he went out and closed the door, and it was too late.

  She went to work in a strange mood of hope and near-terror, the two blending until they became indistinguishable from each other. She was hardly aware of her surroundings, getting on and off the tube automatically, letting her body take her through the familiar routine without consciously thinking about it. Only when she came up from the Underground into the morning furore outside King's Cross was she jolted from her internal world as a fire engine blared past in a cacophony of noise and colour. Looking after it Kate felt a disquieting tug of deja vu. But even as she tried to grasp the memory, it drifted tantalisingly out of reach, insubstantial as smoke.

  She had been told to call the doctor's surgery after eleven. She waited until two minutes past, and then picked up her office phone and dialled the doctor's number. The receptionist took her details and put her on hold. A cheery electronic jingle filled the line. Kate tensed when it stopped, but it had only reached the end of its loop. A second later it started up again, as bland as the chime from an ice-cream van. The tune played through twice, then was abruptly cut off.

  "Miss Powell?" the receptionist's voice broke in. "Your test's positive."

  Kate's mouth had dried. "Positive? So I'm pregnant?"

  "According to this." There was a pause before the woman added, "Congratulations." It was said without real feeling, but Kate didn't care. She thanked the receptionist and hung up. She sat back, examining how she felt. No different and yet, at the same time, utterly changed. An emotion so strong rose up in her she couldn't have put a name to it.

  All at once, the need to tell Alex was unbearable. She had never called him at work before, not since he had asked her not to when they first met. Now, though, she took his card from her wallet and dialled his office number. A woman answered. "Ealing Centre."

  "Can I speak to Alex Turner, please?"

  "Dr Turner's with a patient at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?"

  Kate hesitated. "No, it doesn't matter. Thank you."

  She put down the receiver. But the urge to share the news with him was too strong to ignore. Taking a fax cover sheet from her drawer, she considered what to say. She wanted to phrase the message so that Alex would understand, but not anyone else who happened to see it. Grinning, she picked up a pen. "Your grandmother's St Christopher worked!" she wrote. "Phone me! Love, Kate." Pleased with herself, she went downstairs a
nd faxed it off.

  Alex didn't call that afternoon. Kate guessed that he hadn't got her fax, and debated sending another or phoning him again before deciding not to do either. She would see him that evening. Now she had waited this long, she could wait a little longer to give him the news.

  On the way home, she stopped off and bought a bottle of champagne. Alex rarely arrived before seven, and Kate put salmon steaks in the oven and set the table in the lounge with candles and a white tablecloth. She poured herself a glass of milk and put on a CD, humming along to it while she changed into a navy blue mini-dress. She smiled as she studied the flat-stomached reflection in the bedroom mirror. "Enjoy it while it lasts," she said out loud, and laughed.

  It was almost seven o'clock. Kate went into the kitchen and turned on the heat under the vegetables. The CD had finished, so she went into the lounge and put on a Nina Simone collection, knowing it was one of Alex's favourites. She made a minute adjustment to the napkins she had folded neatly into the glasses on the table and lit the candles. Switching off the lamp, she sat in the candlelight and waited for Alex.

  At eight o'clock she remembered the food. The kitchen was full of steam as she turned off the oven and gas rings.

  The bubbling pans subsided. The new potatoes broke apart like puffballs when she touched them with a fork, while the broccoli had disintegrated into pale, swollen florets. They bobbed on the surface, slowly sinking to the bottom as the water settled down.

  Kate stared down at the ruined vegetables, then abruptly turned and went into the hall to the telephone. She called the Ealing Centre first. An electronic crackle hissed in her ear. She tried again, with the same result. She broke the connection and dialled Alex's home number.

  The phone rang on and on, hollowly. Each pause between rings seemed to take longer, then the next one would trill out, a fresh announcement of loneliness and vacant rooms. Kate hung up.

  She went back into the lounge and turned on the lamp. The table waited, the glasses and cutlery reflecting back the light from the candles. One had dripped red wax onto the tablecloth. Kate looked down at the dark circles on the white surface, and then leaned over and blew out the flames. The wicks sent thick ribbons of smoke towards the ceiling. Its pungent, cloying odour filled the room.