Face The Wind And Fly

by Jenny Harper

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  Long enough for a quick shag , she thought sourly, and remembered all the stolen hours they had spent wound round each other in her tiny student flat before Val had found out about their affair.

  Later, when she was showering off the Buttermilk in a sulky rage, she discovered two condoms in Andrew’s wash bag and in an uncharacteristic fit of viciousness, cut them in half with her nail scissors and replaced them. There. That would dampen his ardour the next time he saw her. She glowed with satisfaction for an hour before the crudeness of her action hit home and she repented. The pieces went in the kitchen bin.

  She was marching round the house aimlessly and trying to resist the idea of opening a bottle of wine to drink alone when Helena Banks called. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Kate, but Ninian is here. Elliott has asked if he can stay for supper.’

  ‘No problem,’ Kate said, but perhaps something of her mood came over in her voice because Helena said, ‘You wouldn’t like to join us, would you? You and Andrew? It’s nothing special, just lasagne, but there’s plenty.’

  She visualised a happy family table and her own home felt cold and empty. Andrew hadn’t reappeared or called and she baulked at the humiliation of phoning him. She looked around at the dustsheets with their splashes of Buttermilk – her technique wasn’t tidy – and wondered if, instead of offering the room a fresh start she was merely obliterating all the moments of happiness and togetherness the space had witnessed.

  ‘That’s a really kind invitation,’ she said to Helena. ‘Actually, Andrew is out this evening, but I’d love to come, if that’s all right?’

  The girl who answered the door was so absolutely similar in appearance to Elliott Banks that Kate gave an involuntary gasp. ‘You must be twins!’

  Her hair was exactly the same shade as Elliott’s, a deep, dark auburn, though it was long and fell smoothly round her shoulders. Her build was slighter than Elliott’s and her features subtly feminine but in all other respects the resemblance was so strong as to be quite unnerving.

  She laughed, just as Elliott laughed, easily and openly, so that it was impossible not to be drawn to her. ‘I’m Alice,’ she said, holding her hand out, ‘You must be Kate. Hi.’

  ‘Ninian,’ Kate said, ‘is a typical boy, I’m afraid. He’s not given to elaboration. Ask him how school was and he’ll say “Fine”. Ask him how his holiday in Devon was and he’ll say “Fine”. Ask him about his friends and you’ll get a grunt. You don’t get information, even such basic information as “Elliott has a twin sister”. I apologise for not knowing of your existence.’

  Alice laughed. ‘Come in. And don’t apologise. I know what you mean about boys. They just play on the X Box or install themselves, feet up on the sofa, to watch football, don’t they?’

  ‘And for hours all you hear is the odd shout of elation or frustration,’ Kate agreed. She liked Alice.

  ‘Hello Kate, nice to see you, Alice don’t leave Kate standing in the hall, come on in.’

  Kate only knew Helena Banks slightly, but seeing her with Alice it was easy to know where the girl got her warmth from. ‘This is so kind of you. I’m painting my kitchen, so the invitation is doubly welcome.’

  ‘Oh God, poor you, it’s so disruptive, isn’t it? But how brave to do it yourself.’

  She led her into a sitting room, where a fire burned cheerfully in the grate and Kate had an instant impression of mellowness and warmth. Where Willow Corner was all creams and pastels and neutrals, this room had burnished gold floorboards and a thick oriental rug. Bookshelves lined the walls, heavy curtains were drawn round a large bay window, and not one, but three, large, chenille-covered sofas were ranged round the fire, their plump cushions soft and inviting.

  ‘Oh, this is lovely!’ she cried impulsively.

  ‘Haven’t you been here before? No, I suppose it was usually Andrew who came to pick Ninian up,’ Helena said, tucking a stray wisp of dark auburn hair behind her ear and smiling at Kate’s pleasure. ‘Wine? Or would you prefer something else?’

  ‘A small glass of wine would be lovely. I’m driving though.’

  ‘Red or white?’

  ‘Whatever’s open.’

  ‘Pick your sofa and I’ll bring it through.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Alice said.

  ‘This wind farm,’ Helena said as her daughter disappeared.

  Kate’s heart sank. For a few minutes she’d been able to forget Summerfield, and AeGen, and the unhappy and aggressive residents of Forgie, and now it was all about to start again.

  ‘I just thought you should know that we’re all very supportive.’

  Kate burst into tears.

  Helena Banks was that rarest of creatures, a natural empathiser. She leapt up to intercept Alice, who was coming through with the wine – ‘That’s lovely, darling, perhaps you could find the boys and warn them that supper will be ready in twenty minutes? Thanks, sweetie,’ – found tissues, and sat patiently while Kate blew her nose and wiped her eyes and stopped sniffing.

  ‘This is not about the Banks family support of your project, I take it?’ she said, smiling so genuinely that Kate had to smile too.

  She gave a last sniff and shook her head. ‘Actually, I’m not working on the project. I’m not working at all at the moment. AeGen have suspended me.’

  And she found herself telling her the whole story, of the pressures she’d been put under by having to run a controversial local project, of Jack Bailey and the way he’d constantly undermined her authority, of how she had cracked when she’d found Ninian at the protest camp, of how she felt attacked and abandoned by people – like Frank Griffiths – who she had known for years and had thought were friends. Another glass or two of wine, and some more time, and she would probably have spilled out everything that was happening with Andrew, and Sophie, and how it was affecting Ninian – though she doubted whether she would have mentioned Ibsen even then. That, in itself, told a story.

  ‘You poor thing. Have you been able to talk to anyone about all this?’

  It wasn’t until she asked the question that Kate realised that she hadn’t spoken to anyone. She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘So you’re at home? Painting the kitchen.’

  She laughed and dabbed her eyes. ‘That’s it in one.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘If I knew that I might sleep more easily at night.’

  ‘Will you fight for your job?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ It had never occurred to her to do anything else.

  Helena placed her wine on a small side table, then got down on her knees and poked the fire, sending a flare of sparks up the chimney. She threw on a log, twisted round, eyed Kate with a speculative look and said, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t.’

  A shout came from the hall. ‘I’m home!’

  ‘That’s Peter.’ She hauled herself up from the floor with the aid of the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll bring him in.’

  Visions of herself as she knew others saw her flashed across Kate’s mind. That’s Kate Courtenay. Ambitious. Clever. Driven. She glanced down at her jeans and sweater and saw the other Kate, in her smart business suit and high heels, a silk scarf the only sop to femininity. She’s hard, they would say, but fair. And she’s a brilliant engineer. These judgement defined her. They were, after all, what she had struggled to create over the years. She’d worked hard at submerging the soft, vulnerable, uncertain parts of her character so that she could function at this other level, in this other world. Maybe you shouldn’t. Helena’s words reverberated round her mind. No. Unthinkable to step back now.

  ‘Kate, this is Peter. Peter, meet Kate Courtenay, Ninian’s Mum. She’s staying for supper.’

  Peter Banks worked, Kate knew, as a senior manager in one of the large insurance companies based in Edinburgh. She had expected someone older, more careworn, more corporate, but what she saw was a fresh-faced, smiling, youthful man who had already ripped off his tie and who was busy strugglin
g with the top button of his shirt as if he couldn’t get out of his city skin quickly enough. ‘Hi Kate. Great to meet you. Can you give me five minutes, Helena, to change?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Fine.’ He flashed Kate an easy smile and slipped off.

  ‘He’s lovely,’ she said spontaneously, before wondering whether it was too personal a remark.

  ‘I’m a lucky woman. Why don’t you come through?’ She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and called up, ‘Alice! Elliott! Ninian! Supper’s ready.’

  They ate in their huge kitchen. Again, it was about as unlike the kitchen at Willow Corner as it was possible to be. Willow Corner was cool and stylish, and Kate had always loved it. But although she regarded her kitchen as the hub of their home, it could not compare with the life-giving joyousness of this room. The floor was stone, all the wood scrubbed pine and two of the walls were rich crimson, the others thick cream. The tiles round the Aga and sink were a wild, multi-coloured jumble. She could not have lived with the effect and it would not have suited her but she fell in love, nevertheless, with its heartwarming exuberance.

  Ninian sat opposite her on a stool, Alice on a wobbly old wooden chair next to her. Elliott, his mouth full of garlic bread, said, ‘Ninian’s in love with Alice.’

  ‘I’m not!’ Ninian flared back, but his cheeks flamed.

  Alice said serenely, ‘Don’t be so crass, Ell.’

  ‘He is though. He fancies you something rotten.’

  ‘Even if he does, Elliott, it’s unkind of you to tease him in that way,’ Helena said, handing Kate a large wooden bowl full of mixed salad leaves. ‘There’s dressing right in front of you, Kate.’

  Ninian’s head was down and he was playing with his lasagne. Ninian and a girl? It had to happen some time, and if there was to be a girl, Kate felt that she could not wish for a nicer one. She said, to take the heat off him, ‘I’m thinking of taking Ninian to France at half term.’

  His head came up. ‘Are you?’

  ‘If you want.’ She turned to Peter. ‘You may not have heard, Peter, but my employers are currently considering my position. I reacted a little too strongly to the eco protest at Bonny Brae Woods for their taste.’

  The admission took courage, but she could not hide in her kitchen for ever.

  Peter grinned. ‘Their loss, Kate.’ He shovelled a forkful of lasagne into his mouth and when he’d finished chewing he said, ‘Ever thought of setting up as a consultant?’

  ‘Consultant? Me?’

  She’d been on a corporate ladder all her working life and it had always been her goal to reach the top. Junior engineer, senior engineer, head of engineering, director – with all the side roles necessary for experience along the way.

  ‘More freedom. And almost certainly more money.’

  ‘I’d never thought about it.’

  ‘Where in France?’ Ninian said. ‘And would Dad come too?’

  Her impulsive effort to take the heat off Ninian and Alice was threatening to take on a new dimension and beginning to look expensive besides. She hadn’t considered the practicalities of the suggestion and already she could see difficulties. ‘We’ll talk about it later, Ninian.’

  ‘When you and Alice get married,’ Elliott said, his face a mask of seriousness, ‘and I’m best man, I shall reveal all your deadliest secrets.’

  ‘Elliott!’ Helena protested, laughing.

  ‘Beast!’ Alice said, and threw a piece of garlic bread at her brother.

  ‘You’re a radge, Banksy,’ Ninian said, shoving his tormentor half off his stool.

  ‘Pax!’ called Peter and every member of the Banks family instantly stopped what they were doing and raised two fingers in a V peace sign.

  ‘Family tradition,’ Helena explained as Kate gawped at them all. ‘Necessary to restore order. Now, it will be peace or no pudding, okay?’

  ‘What’s for pud?’ Elliott asked.

  ‘Crumble and ice cream.’

  ‘Okay then.’ He made a zipping sign over his mouth, but still could not resist giving Ninian a playful half shove in retaliation.

  Kate almost forgot about Andrew. As she and Ninian waved their goodbyes some time later, her mood could hardly have been more in contrast with how she’d been feeling when Helena had called earlier.

  It lasted all the way home and until she walked in the front door and saw Andrew’s silhouette against the living room window, backlit by the light of the moon through the glass. She knew at once that something was wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘Go to bed,’ Kate said quietly to Ninian. ‘It was a good evening.’

  He stared at her, then at Andrew. He opened his mouth to say something, but she pulled him close, quickly, and hugged him. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow, Ninian. Go to bed, okay? Love you.’

  ‘You too.’

  It was more than he’d given her for many months and it made her emotional again. She managed to smile, though, and turned him towards the stairs. This time, he went up obediently.

  She went into the sitting room and closed the door behind her. Down in the garden she could see the willows swaying in the breeze and a gleam, in the bright light of the moon, of the burn as it fell over the stones. Familiar sights in familiar terrain, and yet she knew that the landscape she was entering now was unmapped.

  ‘Andrew?’

  He stirred and his head turned towards her. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘With Ninian. We had supper with Peter and Helena Banks. Have you been back long?’

  ‘Some time.’

  Kate moved into the room, reluctantly, and sank into the armchair opposite Andrew. The silence was broken only by the faint sounds, overhead, of Ninian dropping shoes and opening drawers, and by the quiet gear change of the fridge in the kitchen as it kicked into a new chill cycle.

  She waited silently, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Were we like this, Kate?’ he said at last. ‘Was it like this for Val?’

  She started to shiver, though she still had on her jacket.

  ‘Sophie’s compelling, you know. She makes me feel young again.’

  He was playing with an ornament he had picked up from the side table next to his chair, the netsuke mouse he’d given Kate way back, before they were married.

  Gifts.

  Gifts and guilt.

  Flowers from a forecourt.

  The suffragette brooch, tucked away in a drawer in the bedroom.

  Perfume brought back from a promotional tour in America.

  A dozen other small gifts, produced randomly, but each time after some absence or other.

  Had the netsuke been a guilt gift, even way back then, in the sunrise glory of their romance? Had it been offered by way of atonement? Had all the other little presents? And why had this thought never occurred to her before?

  ‘I don’t mean to hurt you, Kate.’

  The cruellest thrust of all. I don’t mean to hurt you – but I’m going to.

  ‘Can we talk about this? Properly, I mean.’

  ‘I thought we were talking properly.’

  ‘I won’t let this happen. We have spent fifteen years of our lives building something together. We have a family. We have Ninian.’

  ‘I had Harry.’

  ‘And look what he went through,’ she flashed back at him, then bit her lip. She would not stoop to using all the weapons in the armoury. ‘Tell me,’ she said carefully, ‘what Sophie means to you.’

  He drew a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Innocence. Vulnerability. Youth. She needs me in all the ways you don’t.’

  Innocent? Kate almost laughed aloud, but she bit her lip again instead. Pulling the scales away from Andrew’s eyes might prove impossible, she had to find other paths to a solution. ‘She is half your age, Andrew. She is almost a child still.’

  ‘Do you think I haven’t thought about that?’

  ‘When you are eighty years old she will only be the age you are now.’

  ‘She has thought about
it too.’

  ‘Will you have children?’

  ‘She would like children.’

  Her shivering became almost impossible to control. ‘This ever more complicated family of yours, Andrew, how will it work?’

  ‘It will work because I want it to work. It must be made to work.’

  ‘You’re so selfish!’ she cried, wondering how she could not have seen it before.

  ‘And you’re so righteous. You’ve never done anything impulsive or fun in your life.’

  Kate’s chin came up at the insult. ‘Except fall in love with you, you mean? Anyway, you’re wrong. I slept with Ibsen Brown.’

  An abyss opened at their feet and her words plummeted into it, spoken and therefore irretrievable. She stared at Andrew, her eyes wide with horror at her confession. She had never before understood the word thunderstruck, but his face perfectly expressed it now.

  ‘You ... did ... what?’

  There was no going back. ‘It just happened. It didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Didn’t mean anything? Isn’t that rather a cliché?’

  It was. And worse, it wasn’t even true, because in the indigo world where she and Ibsen had joined themselves, body and soul, it had actually meant a very great deal to her. At the time. This was a reflection she could hardly share with Andrew, though, so she said, ‘Andrew, we’re not talking about one quick intimacy here, are we? We’re talking about something on a different scale altogether, something it might be rather harder to forgive, or forget.’

  He was still fiddling with the netsuke and for some reason it was really irritating her.

  ‘Will you put that thing down, Andrew. Please.’

  He thumped it onto the table with a crash that made her wince. She was fond of that mouse, guilt gift or no, and she would be sorry to see it broken. ‘Jesus Christ, Kate, I didn’t think you’d do a thing like that.’